The Playboy's Baby(16)
Dillon couldn’t stop himself from following the movement. How many times growing up had he thought about tasting that mouth? Of running his tongue along that very same lip? Looking up and meeting her gaze again, he saw it. A subtle shift, an awareness that sparked between them. Subtle, but there all the same. Everything inside of him tightened in response. Every single one of those boyhood fantasies flooded his mind like a tidal wave.
Firmly reminding himself Emma was Janey’s big sister and he had no business touching her, Dillon stuffed his hands into his pockets and forced his mind to focus on something else. “So, fair’s fair. What’s your story? Janey said you don’t date.”
Emma froze beside him. Before his eyes, a wall went up between them. Her easy smile melted and her back stiffened, her hands clenching. Just when he thought she wouldn’t answer, she averted her gaze to the floor and folded her arms across her chest. “I do date. Just not much.”
“Why not?”
Emma might be a bit uptight, but she was gorgeous. He wouldn’t expect she had much trouble in the dating department.
“I’m not Janey. It’s been my experience most men only want one thing. That was okay with her, but I’m nobody’s good time.” Despite the venom in the statement and the stiff way she held herself, a lost, vulnerable look took over her features. Emma stared out in front of her, eyes shifting, like a memory played through her mind.
Her statement screamed of a bad experience. Dillon had the sudden urge to wrap his arms around her, to soothe whatever wound lay beneath that armor.
A heartbeat later, Emma shut it all off. She drew up straight and pushed away from the counter, crossing the kitchen to where Annie lay sound asleep in her car seat. “We should go get my things now. I need to put her to bed.”
Chapter Four
They made it back to the house in an hour. Emma stood beside Dillon in the darkened guest bedroom, both staring down into the portable crib. Annie had fallen asleep minutes ago, but so far, neither of them spoke or moved. She tried to summon the courage to tell him what she needed to, what couldn’t be put off any longer.
An awkward awareness of him developed on the drive over. Dillon helping her pack and move her belongings felt oddly intimate. It left her overly aware of the change between them. Overly aware that she was a woman and he was a man. Something she hadn’t thought about in eight years, she was sure she’d firmly set aside. Yet there it was, rising all over again. She watched the way his muscles bunched and tightened when he moved, helping her pack the portable crib and carry it all out to his car. All the while the memory of those muscles against her when he held her in his arms at the club ripened in her mind. Her cheek pressed to the solid wall of his chest…
So much that making decent conversation on the drive back to his house became near impossible. The ride was too silent, the air inside his SUV practically sizzling with tension.
She didn’t appear to be alone in that feeling either. When she and Dillon set up the portable crib in the guest bedroom, they moved with an awkward awareness of each other. He held himself stiff, those dark eyes forever darting to her, somber and wary, telling her without words he felt the tension too. Given their history, it wasn’t only odd for her to be spending the night in his house, but unusual for the two of them to be behaving like parents. Together.
She didn’t quite know what to say to him, how to form the words. Her heart beat like it wanted to escape her chest, and a permanent knot rooted in the pit of her stomach. Somehow, over the years, Janey’s obnoxious best friend had become a man. Damned if her body wasn’t responding full force to him. No matter how much she shouldn’t be noticing.
“We can go get a full-sized crib tomorrow.” Dillon’s voice drifted through the darkness barely above a whisper.
She turned to look at him. Moonlight streamed in through the window in bright streaks against his back, illuminating the room behind him, casting his face in shadows. “If you like.”
“I would.” Dillon looked over at her. “Are you tired? Should I leave you to sleep?”
Emma shook her head. She was too nervous to sleep. The entire house screamed of Dillon. From the pictures of his family that covered his walls, to the clean, masculine lines of the furniture—expensive-looking pieces, done in lush fabrics and richly textured, highly polished wood. A subtle hint of the cologne he wore, warm and spicy, permeated the air, so every time she inhaled, her lungs filled with the scent of him. A scent so familiar, yet its effect so different. The scent of a man.
All things some part of her insisted she shouldn’t notice about him, but suddenly she couldn’t seem to help herself. Dillon was a man. So far the only one who made her feel safe when his arms closed around her. She kept expecting to find that irresponsible kid she grew up with, the one who happily got into trouble with her little sister. Now, he proved beyond a doubt he wasn’t that boy anymore. The more of that man she saw, the more Emma had no idea what to do with any of the emotions he inspired within her.