The Playboy's Baby(34)

Undeterred, Dillon shook the keys. “I’m sure it does, but I’d feel better if you took mine.”

“Then what will you drive?” Deliberately not taking the keys from him, she sidestepped his outstretched hand and grabbed her coat off the hook. “You’re going to be driving Annie around. You need the Escalade more than I do.”

“I have a truck in the garage. It does great in the snow. I just prefer my Escalade.”

He had a toy. One arm into her jacket, she paused to stare at him. “Why am I not surprised?”

A soft smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, so sexy her stomach fluttered in response. He winked. “Spoiled rich boy, remember?” When she didn’t take the keys, his expression sobered. “Take the car and call me when you get there so I know you made it safe.”

She pursed her lips. “You sound like somebody’s mother.”

“I sound like my mother.” He dangled the keys in front of her nose, this time a playful glint coming into his eyes, his voice sing-song. “You know you want to.”

She smiled in spite of herself and, with a sigh, snatched the keys before turning to shove her feet into her boots. “What if I scratch it?”

“If you scratch it, you’ll owe me. We’d have to come to some sort of…arrangement.”

At the all too obvious innuendo, her mouth dropped open. Surely he hadn’t really suggested….

Emma jerked her head in his direction. The corners of his mouth twitched, and his eyes held an unmistakable mischievous glint she’d seen one too many times before. This was the boy she grew up with, the little imp who loved to tease her. She cuffed his shoulder, and he laughed, a light hearty sound that rumbled up from his chest.

An instinctive smile spread in response. She leaned forward, kissed Annie on the back of the head, and took one tiny hand in hers for a moment. “Bye, sweet girl.”

She turned back to Dillon. He gave her a soft smile. For a moment, the heat in his eyes held her captive, the remembrance of his kiss only hours before zipping between them.

“Bye, Em.”

“Bye.” Forcing herself to break eye contact, lest she do something stupid like throw herself at him, she turned to grab her small suitcase and pulled the front door open. A blast of cold air rushed in around her, a few snowflakes following, blissfully cool against her overheated skin.

“If you don’t call me in three hours,” Dillon called out behind her when she was halfway down the driveway, “I’m calling you.”

She unlocked the car then climbed in, shutting out the wind and the sound of his voice and settled back into the seat with a sigh. These next few days were exactly what she needed. The pull between them proved stronger than anticipated. More than anything, she longed to give in, to know what it felt like to stop being so responsible and uptight and instead give in to a guilty pleasure.

She wanted it with a fierceness that frightened her.





“You didn’t call.”

The sound of Dillon’s deep rich voice had a riot of emotion flooding Emma’s stomach. She ought to be glad for the time away from him, to clear her head. Standing in the kitchen, all she could focus on was how good his voice sounded. Two steps into the small two-bedroom house she’d shared with Janey up until a month ago, the silence descended on her. Here, without Janey and Annie, she felt alone. Completely, totally alone. The emotion wanted to sink her.

“Sorry, I got busy.” She’d put off calling him, simply because she’d spent the last hour craving the sound of his voice. It felt childish at best to need to hear a voice the way she needed to hear his, but still she closed her eyes and allowed herself the luxury of wallowing in the sound of it, hoping it would loosen the knot gripping her chest. The low throb of music in the background had her envisioning him at the club, in his office, seated behind the large wooden desk.

“How was the drive?” he asked.

She opened her eyes and turned to lean back against the counter. “It was good. You were right. The Escalade is much better in the snow than my car.”

“I won’t say I told you so.”

The teasing tone of his voice had her envisioning a smile, but she couldn’t muster a response to match. She wanted to ask him to talk to her, to chatter at her, until the warm familiar rumble of his voice wrapped itself around her. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine him here beside her, could almost see herself within the safety of his embrace. The fierceness with which she wanted it made her tremble.

Silence rang over the phone line while she struggled not to say all of those things to him, to admit how much she needed him right then.