And he’d definitely started her the night before.
Recoup and recover, she told herself calmly, praying he’d assume the question was rhetorical. She strolled to the corner, where she’d laid out the few clothes she’d brought inside with her last night. If she thought she could have pulled it off, she would have casually dropped her towel and dressed, showing him just how unaffected she was by his little announcement.
Only she wasn’t unaffected. She wasn’t angry at his rejection. Her ego wasn’t fragile. But she was…disappointed. Yes, disappointed. Surely that was the real emotion behind what had actually felt a whole lot more like hurt. Liza never got hurt. Conrad notwithstanding. And as Natalie had already pointed out, her little…whatever, with Conrad had really just been a case of happily-ever-after envy.
This…well, this wasn’t anything. A private little pleasure detour was all this had been. So what if it had ended more abruptly than she’d have liked? She was already over it.
And yet she still took her clothes to the bathroom to change. No point in advertising what he wasn’t willing to work for, she told herself.
“You look beat,” she called out, leaving the door open just to prove how little he was affecting her. “If you want, you can just catch a little sleep here. Checkout isn’t till eleven. I’m taking care of the bill on my way out, so just close the door when you leave.” Perfect. Breezy, casual, so not affected.
Then he appeared in the doorway, just as she was pulling her flower-print cotton sundress down over her hips. No knock, no clearing of throat, just there he was. And there was absolutely nothing casual, breezy or unaffected about the way he looked at her.
“I’m sorry about breakfast. About…this.”
She found a smile somewhere, though her lips trembled a bit. Dammit. “I understand,” she lied. Well, she did, really. He was tired, he was busy, he didn’t have time for dallying with her. She just didn’t want to understand it. She collected her toothbrush and makeup bag and turned sideways to slip by him. Only he turned that big body of his so that he blocked the door.
She didn’t move back, though it took serious willpower. No doubt her reaction to being so close to him was quite obvious through the thin cotton of her dress. So what? Let him deal with it, she thought, studying the tiny row of buttons marching down his chest.
“Look at me.”
She glanced up through her lashes. “You don’t stay to play, you don’t get to order me around anymore.”
His lips quirked, but the humor didn’t reach his eyes. He looked so weary, as if the dark edginess had invaded and sapped the warmth, the life out of them.
“And don’t go pulling handcuffs out of…wherever it is you stash them.” She wagged a finger, falling back on the moxie she used to keep men off balance, a little unsure of themselves in the face of her oh-so-sassy confidence.
It took serious effort this morning, and she doubted Dylan was falling for it, anyway. Even when he was dead tired, those eyes of his…saw things. Things most men didn’t notice. But what the hell did she have left to throw his way? Except herself.
Don’t even think it, Liza.
He lifted a hand, as if to brush away a stray curl on her cheek, only her hair clung to her head in wet ringlets, not brush-awayable, and he let his hand drop without touching her at all. She had to work to stifle the yearny little sigh of disappointment.
“You’re not an easy woman to walk away from.”
“Yes, I know.” She beamed a phony smile as her heart clutched. Her heart was supposed to be unclutchable. “It’s one of my finer points. Now if you’ll excuse me…” Please let me get out of here while I still can.
“I want to. In fact, if I’d been smart, I’d have just called you this morning instead of showing up.”
She fluttered her lashes and tried like mad to unclutch her damn heart. “Honey, you know it’s always better to do it in person whenever you can.” He didn’t laugh, didn’t smile. He just looked at her, in that way of his that went past her phony repartee, straight into her eyes and right down into her soul.
Now she pushed past him, not caring about the contact and the shivery way it made her feel to brush up against that hard, muscled body. She forced a light, sexy grin and looked back at him, telling herself she didn’t care if he saw through her. Phony repartee served a purpose in times like this. It allowed both parties to retreat with pride intact, so that both could nurse their wounds in private. Always preferable over some messy public implosion.
“I do appreciate that you made the effort to stop by. And it’s just as well we don’t take this further, you know?” She tossed her makeup bag and toothbrush into her leather overnight clutch. “I’m not really that into bondage, and despite what you think, you’d have probably gotten weird when it was my turn at the controls.” She scooped up her pants and shirt from the day before and her sleep T and panties, not bothering to fold and pack them carefully. She was a decent actress in moments like these, but this performance was straining even her talents. She grabbed her purse and her bag. “This way we can each fill in the details of what might have happened according to our own personal fantasy.”
“That’s just it,” he said, crossing the room, “you are my own personal fantasy.”
She laughed even as he closed the distance between them. “Oh, I don’t think so. You like your women willing and pliable. I’m flexible, but only in the way that leads to incredible orgasms.”
“Not a bad place to start.”
She crossed her arms, sending her mind and her heart back to their separate corners. “You need to make up your mind here.”
Now he laughed. “I know.” He rubbed his hand over his face, then through his short but already rumpled hair. “I have a serious case on my hands that’s top priority.”
“The fire?”
“That’s part of it. I have an out-of-state meeting in a couple hours and will very likely be tied up for the next couple of days. I don’t have time for—”
“Me.”
“For anyone.” He laughed again, but there was no humor in it. “The irony of which overwhelms me at the moment. For years in Vegas I tried to force relationships into the cracks between my job, but my job didn’t leave too many cracks. So I came home, made a grab for a life that actually leaves time for one. And when I finally get around to wanting the relationship…my old job comes back to bite me on the ass.”
Her eyes had widened at the R word. “We don’t have a relationship.”
“Exactly.”
She shook her head. “I’m missing something here.”
He stepped closer and gently unfolded her arms. “Exactly.” He pulled the bag from her shoulder and tossed it on the bed. “Letting you walk away from me now, before I even get to figure out why it is you make me crazy and hot all at the same time, is missing something.”
“See, if you’d let me be in charge last night, we’d have ended up in bed and be out of each other’s system by now,” she said with a laugh she didn’t feel. Wishing she didn’t understand exactly how he felt.
“You think so?” He tugged her closer. “I’m not so sure.”
“Dylan—”
“See? Just my name on your lips—” he pulled her up tight against him, wrapping a thick arm around her waist to hold her there “—does that to me.”
“You have meetings,” she said, a bit breathlessly. Which made no sense. She had made men hard for her before. But not just by saying their name. Not in the way it is for him. Nonsense. They were all the same.
Except they weren’t. Because Dylan wasn’t like any man she’d encountered before.
“An important case,” she added, scrambling to find her footing physically, emotionally.
“I know.”
“So you shouldn’t do this. You should go.”
“Absolutely.”
They stared at each other for one long, screamingly tense moment. Pull away, Liza. This has advanced beyond the safety zone. Abort, abort. Detour over.
She drew in a shaky breath. “So either throw me on the bed and take me right now, fast, hard, until we both can’t remember our names. Or let me walk out the door.”
Okay, so that wasn’t exactly the firm dismissal she should have delivered.
Her heart thundered in her ears and she honestly didn’t know which choice she wanted him to make. Another lie, but no less scary, and hard as hell to admit.
“I should let you go,” he murmured, then slid the spagehetti-thin straps off her shoulders. “Because I have this feeling,” he continued, as she tried to suck in enough air to form some kind of response, but instead just stood there, riveted by the look in his eyes as his fingers brushed down her arms. “That once I get inside you—” he leaned down and nipped her shoulder, a light pinch that made her gasp “—they’ll need to send Tucker’s entire department over here with fire hoses to blast us apart.”
“Dear God,” she finally said, exhaling shakily and knowing she’d truly lost the battle. She reached for the hem of his shirt, but he gently pushed her hands back to her sides.