Daring Dylan (The Billionaire Brotherhood Book 2) (28 page)

“Dylan and
Senator Bradford were there?” Clayton cocked his head to the side and pulled on
his left earlobe. The mannerism stabbed Dylan with an eerie deja vu. He’d seen
Uncle Arthur and other members of the family make the exact same gesture
hundreds of times before. Learned response or nervous habit, he reminded
himself, there was nothing genetic about it.

“You knew
Dylan was going with me,” she reminded him. “On the way, we ran into his
uncle.”

“Why’s he
in town?”

“He was
worried about the fire,” Dylan said. “He came to see what’s going on.”

Tanya
poured Clayton some coffee and left with him, but returned a few minutes later.
During the next several hours, Clayton and Gracie took turns at David’s
bedside.

When Tanya
stepped out for some fresh air, Clay reappeared without Gracie.

“Any
change?” Dylan rubbed his eyes, completed a text, and checked the time.

“No.” He
poured more coffee, but set the drink aside untasted. After a moment of
silence, he turned to Dylan. “I apologize. When I got here tonight, I think I
accused you of having caused this, and even then, I knew that you hadn’t.”

“Forget it.
You were worried.”

“It’s
just—” He pressed his lips into a firm line before continuing. “He’s all I
have.”

“You have
Gracie and her grandparents,” Dylan pointed out. “And Tanya.”

“Now I do.”
He took a sip of the neglected coffee and grimaced. “But if it hadn’t been for
David, I probably would have been raised in foster care. He always made me feel
like he wanted me to live with him and that he’d always be there for me. As a
doctor, I know the seriousness of his condition. As a son, I just don’t know
how to face it.”

“Yeah, it’s
tough.” Dylan had experienced the same kind of denial during his mother’s
illness, and he’d had a full contingent of supportive relatives to help him get
through it. There had never been any doubt about who he was or his place in the
family tree. Clayton didn’t have that kind of security. Dylan’s stomach jumped
just thinking about it. Especially now that he felt more and more sure that
Clayton had been cheated by someone in the Bradford family.

“Clay,” he
said, suddenly certain he was doing the right thing, “have you made the
arrangements for the DNA tests?”

Coffee
sloshed as Clayton sat his cup down too quickly. “Not yet.”

“Why not?”

“If it
turns out that your father murdered my mother, I don’t think I want to know
that he’s my father, too.”

“I can’t
make any guarantees, but it’s time to know the whole truth.”

“That’s all
I’ve ever wanted.” Hesitantly, Clay and Dylan shook on it. “As soon as the
first shift of lab guys get in, I’ll arrange for the blood samples to be
drawn.”

“How long
will it be before we get the results?”

“A few days,
maybe longer.”

“That
long?”

“Even with
a rush on it, DNA testing is complicated.”

A nurse
poked her head into the room. “Clay, Dr. Collier’s coming around.”

Once the
worst of David’s crisis had passed, Gracie went home for a few hours of sleep.
Her emotions wobbled back and forth between relief and panic, but she kept her
doctor-face firmly in place on the ride back to East Langden with Dylan.

The secret
David had spilled had been a doozy. She had no idea how Dylan would react to
it. Would he want to have her stepfather charged with murder? How could she let
him do that?

How could she prevent it?

So many
gut-wrenching events had happened in the past week that she hardly recognized
herself or the people around her. Ever since Dylan’s arrival, life had involved
one major upheaval after another.

Dylan
maneuvered the curve of the Liberty House drive, and Gracie settled her gaze on
his shadowed features. God, he was gorgeous. And sweet and nice and kind. And a
lot of other things she would probably never discover.

When he
braked, he turned and caught her smiling at him. “What?”

“Clay told
me he’d all but decided to drop the idea of DNA tests, but you urged him to go
forward.”

“So?” Dylan
stepped out of the car and she followed.

She tilted
her head and studied his moonlit face. “I thought you’d be the one to drag your
feet.”

With a hand
on her arm, he turned her toward the carriage house. “I changed my mind.”

She
stopped, unable to continue on as if nothing else had occurred. “What are you
going to do about David?”

He tensed
but shrugged off her question. “Nothing.”

Cautious
relief sluiced through her. “Why not?”

“My
father’s been dead a long time.” With his hands in his pockets, he rocked back
on his heels. Taut jaw muscles contradicted his casual air.

Elation
raised Gracie’s spirits a notch, but this seemed too good to be true. “You
aren’t going to tell anyone?”

“Just my
sister.” Dylan shook his head sadly, slowly. “What would be the point of
telling anyone else? My father will still be dead, and another good man’s life
will be ruined.”

“What about
your uncle?”

He
hesitated again. “I don’t think he’ll say anything.”

Her heart
filled with gratitude and admiration and another emotion that slammed into her
so hard and so fast it left her breathless.
Could
this be love?
Although she’d resisted the emotion from the beginning—and
considered the idea foolish in the extreme even now—she no longer denied the
truth to herself. Joyfully, she flung her arms around him. “You’re a good man,
too.”

“Do you
happen to need a good man?” He folded her into his arms and crushed her against
him.

She planted
herself against his chest. “Desperately.”

“I want to
be good. To you. For you. With you.” His lips trailed across her cheeks, ears,
and neck, punctuating each phrase with soft, sweet kisses.

“Let’s be
good together.” Her smile twinkled. “Or bad.”

“Not bad.
Not tonight,” he said as serious as she’d ever seen him. “Tonight, I want
everything between us to be good.” He breathed deeply of her skin, and she felt
like he was trying to absorb her into him. “So good. Like you.” He kept his arm
around her shoulders. “Although, I wish you had worn the lab coat home. That
hot doctor look is a real turn on.”

“I should
have known you’d like that. I’ll bring one home tomorrow and give you a good
going over.”

After an
evening chock-full of worry and stress, she eagerly accepted the forgetfulness
he offered. His magic touch spread through her with the slide of his tongue
beneath her ear.

Slowly, they
made their way up the staircase, through the living room, and into the bedroom.
They stripped one another’s clothes, tugging off a sweatshirt here, a T-shirt
there, jeans, socks, all the way down to her teeny pink thong. Dylan had gone
commando.

With a
stroke of his rigid shaft, it jutted boldly into her palm.

Each
delicate and brief brush of skin, as well as each lingering contact, sizzled
and intensified.

Gracie
moaned deep in her throat as she matched his long, sensual, drugging kisses.
She couldn’t get enough of him. She wiggled against him, her hands moving over
him everywhere, from muscled back to corrugated stomach, along the smooth
length of his rock-hard cock.

She savored
the hot dizziness that came with his hand’s caress along her ribs, his mouth’s
tug on her breast, and his reverent attention to her slickest flesh. Increasing
sensations, escalating responses overlapped in an endless stream.

When she
positioned the tip of his penis against her, he stopped and held her gaze.

“Go for
it,” she whispered, breathless with anticipation. Her heart pounded as he eased
the long, hard length into her. She relished each delicious inch.

“Sweet
Jesus,” he prayed, his hands cradling her face. “You’re amazing, Gracie.”

With their
eyes locked, they began the slow dance to completion. Each stroke took her to a
new level, higher, deeper, farther than she’d ever been. She wanted to tell him
how she felt, but words eluded her. She hoped he understood from her touch,
from her acceptance, from her response.

He reached
beneath her and tilted her hips up, increasing the depth of each thrust. Her
desire accelerated until she could only gasp out his name. “Dylan, Dylan.”

“Come for
me now,” he breathed into her ear.

“Come with
me,” she pleaded.

Their
bodies tensed and arched as the powerful climax gripped them. She squeezed him
within her sheath as he continued, harder, stronger, faster, exploding them
into the free-fall of mind-numbing, heart-stopping, life-affirming pleasure.

Drifting
back into reality, a sensual lethargy pulled at Gracie’s humming body, but her
thoughts ricocheted with unfettered energy. After the fire, they’d had sex. A
grand, pounding, no-holds-barred, physical release. In the shower before the
festival, they’d had fun with bubbles, playing together, their mating as easy
and as uncomplicated as seals.

But this
time, this glorious time, they had shared love. Created love. Invented love. A
binding, emotional experience that stirred her heart and her senses and floated
her deep into mysteriously tempting, terrifyingly uncharted waters.

When
morning came, it dragged in about ten pounds of doubts and worries along with a
window full of buttery yellow sunbeams.

They’d made
love. Gracie conceded the fact, picking up on her earlier thoughts. She had
felt it in the depths of her heart and soul. But as she took MacDuff for his
morning walk, she admitted that the actual word hadn’t been spoken. Not by him.
Not by her.

They lived in
completely different worlds, with different rules and expectations. A fish and
a bird might fall in love, but they would never live in the same world. How
could they share a happily ever after?

If a fairy
godmother waved a magic wand to shoehorn Gracie into Dylan’s world of glitz and
glamour, she wouldn’t want to make the transformation. Life had to be filled
with more important pursuits than frolicking at the latest hotspots and
shopping for the hippest designer fashions.

She loved
her work. Financial necessities aside, she enjoyed the mental stimulation it
demanded, and the emotional gratification it provided.

If Dylan
could fit into her world—a niggling voice reminded her how hard he’d worked
during the past week to do just that—she couldn’t picture him taking up
permanent residence there. He’d done great here in East Langden, but her real
life was in Hartford with her practice and the patients that liked her and
needed her. She couldn’t see him cooling his heels when she got called away to
check on a six-year-old with a tummy ache.

And even
though she personally admired the accomplishments Dylan and his sister
spearheaded through The Matthew Bradford Foundation, the role was too
structured and limiting to grab his interest full-time.

He was good
at investing his and other people’s money at his grandfather’s brokerage. But
he played at it like a hobby, not a calling or even a job. She suspected he
could give it up tomorrow and never miss the work or the income.

Shaking her
head at their incompatibility, she returned to the house, stood over the bed
and watched him sleep. They probably had only a few days left together. She’d
do her best not to get in any deeper, but she wouldn’t let him go until she had
no other choice. She shimmied out of her yoga pants and sweatshirt and tossed
them aside.

Running a
fingertip along his eyebrow, she leaned in to kiss him. He snapped awake then
smiled. “Gracie,” he said. Just that. Warming her to her toes with the single
word. Her name had never sounded so good.

“Dylan,” she
answered, liking the sound of that equally well.

He grabbed
hold of her hand and pulled her into his arms. “You know what?” He lifted her
chin and kissed her mouth. “We forgot to use protection again.”

“No!” She
jerked away, shaking her head. “No.”

“Denial
won’t change the facts.”

“Oh, my
God.” Her hand pressed against the heart pounding so forcefully she thought it
might crack a few ribs. “What was I thinking?”

“You
weren’t thinking anything. Except
yes,
yes, yes
!” At her look of indignation, he quit teasing and held up his
hand. “And neither was I. I’m sorry. I take full responsibility. I’m healthy,
and I assume you are. But I promise, it won’t happen again.”

“Again?”
she asked, surprised he didn’t understand her concern. Surprised he wasn’t as
alarmed as she. “Won’t happen again! What good will that do us, or the baby we
might have conceived?”

“
Baby
!” His eyes narrowed in speculation.
“What are the chances of that?”

Gracie knew
the statistics all too well. “About sixty-percent if my calculations are correct.”

He trailed
his fingers through her hair, soothing her. “Aren’t you using any kind of birth
control?”

She pulled
away from him to jump and pace. She thought better when she paced. When he
wasn’t touching her. Except for now when she wore nothing, and he watched her
too closely and with an elevated level of interest. “Birth control pills. Which
I left in Hartford, because I came up here unexpectedly, having just broken up
with my boyfriend and not expecting to have sex.”

“Always be
prepared, babe.” His cell phone trilled a welcome interruption.

“You should
get that.” Her hand shook as she passed the phone to him. “There’s so much
going on now.”

He looked
at the display. “It’s my uncle.”

A flash of
self-consciousness seized her by the throat even though Arthur had no way of
knowing that his nephew was naked in her bed. She pulled on the oldest, most
shapeless, sexless, pathetic robe she owned.

“No, I
wasn’t asleep,” Dylan said. “We were just about to get up.”

Why did he have to say that?
She dropped her head
in her hands. They were adults. This wasn’t so bad. Gran knew they were
sleeping together. And Clay suspected. Why did it matter if someone in Dylan’s
family knew it, too? The information shouldn’t carry any particular
significance just because that someone was a stiffly dignified US Senator.

Dylan
covered the receiver and raised his eyebrows. “Breakfast with my uncle?”

“I’ll have
to call the hospital first.” She bashed down the tentacles of embarrassment
waiting to rise up and prevent her from ever facing Arthur again. “Depends on
David.”

“I’ll meet
you at the diner in an hour,” he said into the phone. “Gracie may or may not be
with me.”

She grabbed
her own phone and called Clay, Dylan headed for the bathroom. Finally, Clay
came on the line and reported on David’s great improvement.

“Are you
ready for a break?” she asked.

“I’m going
to grab a nap and a shower before my morning rounds. Tanya’s coming back, and
she’ll stay with David till you get here.”