Regrets Only (37 page)

It
turned out that Dylan’s definition of a hotel room was actually a mind-blowing penthouse
suite with damask draperies, exquisite furnishings, and views of the city on
all sides. “So you hate limos, but not all luxury accommodations, I see,”
Suzanne said as they exited the elevator into the massive suite. She was
feeling more like herself now.

Dylan
put her bag in a closet by the front door.
Easy getaway
, she thought
instinctively, dropping her purse on a nearby table.

“Well,
can you blame me? I am trying to woo you, so I thought it couldn’t hurt to
stack the deck in my direction, at least a little bit.”

“Trying
to
woo
me? Dylan, you—”

“Wait,
me first,” he said firmly, putting a finger over her lips. “You don’t get to
make
all
the speeches in this relationship. There’s something I have
wanted to say to you ever since you drove up to the mountain, but I have been
trying to figure out how to say it. How to say it right, I mean.”

“Okay,”
she said, holding her breath.

He
drew her close to him, holding her hands down at her side. His body was inches
away, warm and comforting, and she wanted to reach out and touch him.

“Suzanne,
I love you, too.” He said it in almost a whisper, and then reiterated in a
stronger voice, “I love you. You deserved to hear it from me sooner but I’m an
asshole about stuff like that sometimes. I’m trying to get better. Anyway, I
have loved you since the moment I saw you at the stadium in those ridiculous
heels—”

“Hey!”

“—looking
like the hot girl from a sexual harassment video. And then you showed me up,
and insulted my friend’s batting stats, in front of everyone. I sort of hated
you for it, but I liked you, too. I can safely say you are the only woman I
have ever loved, liked, and hated at first sight.” She felt herself smiling.
She realized she could say the same about him.

He
dropped one hand and led her to a bedroom with an oversized four-poster bed, a
sitting area by the window, and a gorgeous floor-to-ceiling view of what she
assumed was Central Park. She gasped involuntarily at its beauty in the
mid-morning light. She wished she had her paints and a canvas.

“See?”
he said, as though he were continuing some point he’d been making before,
gesturing out to the park below. “That’s exactly what I mean. You appreciate
things. You never seem to take anything for granted. I love that about you.”

He
turned back to face her. “I know we don’t seem to have a lot in common; I know
you think our age difference matters. I know I’m not,” he hesitated, rolling
the next words around in his mouth as though they had an unpleasant taste, “
William,
or somebody like him. Somebody whose parents know your parents and whose family
isn’t on the front page of the gossip magazines every other week.”

“I
told you I broke up with William months ago,” she interrupted. He ignored her.

 “I’ve
been thinking for weeks about everything you said, about how you never wanted
to get married and how you don’t know how to bring kids into this scary world
and my tour schedule and the women and Journey…and I want you to know I get it.
All of it. And I’m not going to play games or try to be more relaxed than I
feel. I’m as serious about this as I have ever been about anything. Cards on
the table.”

He
dropped her hand and held up his palms to her in a gesture of surrender. “If
you decide to leave this room now, or,” he stole a shy glance at the bed, “
after
,
then I understand. You can sneak out with your bag and add me to the list on
your wall, and I won’t resent you for it. I’ll understand. Really.

“But
Scarlett, when I’m away from you, you’re all I think about. Even when I was so
pissed at you this summer. In fact, I haven’t so much as touched another woman
since that awful day in your apartment. Not the entire damn tour. And
believe
me
there were chances.” He emphasized this and shook his head in a way
designed to let her know just how hard some of those chances had been to pass
up.

“What
about Gretchen?” Suzanne demanded.

“Nope.
Told her I needed a shower and stayed in there until she passed out.” He
smiled. “Got kind of wrinkly in there, actually. I think somebody had given her
a Red Bull.”

“But
why?” Suzanne asked, curiosity mingled with jealousy. “You were mad at me. I
was seeing William. You and I certainly weren’t dating. You had no reason to—”

“I
know
,” he said. “That was the frustrating part. I was so mad at you, but
at the same time I wanted to be loyal to you. And that made me even more mad at
you. It was a pretty ugly cycle for a few weeks there. Just ask the guys in the
band. And about forty thousand people in Sacramento.” He shook his head
regretfully, remembering something.

“They
probably all hate me.”

“Nah,”
he said dismissively. “Sacramento is a pretty forgiving city. Though I did get
a couple of bad reviews from that show.”

She
rolled her eyes.

“No,
the guys don’t hate you. Actually, Eddie convinced me to do this.”

“To
confess your love for me on national television?”

“Well,
no, that part was mine. But to tell you how I feel, that was Eddie.”

She
nodded. She always had liked Eddie. “I guess you took that suggestion and ran
with it, huh?”

“At
first I didn’t know why I was doing it,” Dylan went on, “avoiding the other
women, I mean. Well, avoiding, and rejecting, and in a couple of cases,
really
pissing them off…Anyway, I think in a way I wanted to prove to myself I could be
true to one person, even when I didn’t have any obligation to you. I thought if
I could be faithful to the
idea
of you, then maybe I’d deserve a chance
with the
real
you. I know that probably sounds stupid but—”

“No,
it doesn’t sound stupid,” she interrupted gently, touching his arm. “It sounds
sweet.”

“When
I was a kid I used to think I’d marry the first girl…well, you know. And
obviously that didn’t work out, and since then—”

“I
know,” Suzanne said firmly. Even though it was all in the past and she had absolutely
no room to talk, a sizzling pang of jealousy was cutting through the sea of
other emotions like a hot blade. The image of Misty traipsing into her
apartment like the cat who ate the canary was pushing itself to the front of
her brain.

Dylan
cleared his throat, looking at the floor. “Considering we’re both…uh,
experienced
at this stuff, I wanted to do something that would make this thing between us
different. I figured if I ever got to stand here, and touch your face, your
body, I wanted to know that I’d
earned
you in a way none of those other
guys ever did.”

Suzanne
wiped tears, aware that she had cried more in front of Dylan Burke than any man
she’d ever known, maybe including her dad. Seeing this response seemed to
bolster Dylan’s resolve. The words came out in a rush. “Suzanne, I love you. I’ve
known that for a while now. I didn’t want it to be true at first, honestly,
especially at Kate’s wedding. I was so pissed at you, even though I knew I had
no right to expect…Anyway, the plain truth is: I don’t want anyone else. We
don’t have to get married if you don’t want to, and we can talk about kids; I
mean, I think you’d be a great mom, but I have nieces and nephews I love, and I
know life with a musician can be hard, but if anybody can handle it, it’s you—”

“Shut
up,” she said.

“What?”

“Shut
up.” Suzanne lifted herself onto her toes and kissed him lightly. “You talk too
much.” She kissed him more deeply, allowing herself to believe the fantasy,
just for a moment. If this was all going to disappear when she woke up, she
might as well enjoy it now.

Dylan
beamed down at her, and then sank to his knees.
Oh, no.
Her head was
spinning.
Please, please don’t propose.
It was too much, too fast.

Only
when he laughed at her did she realize she’d spoken aloud. “Don’t worry,
Scarlett. I’m not going down that road today,” he said, grinning up at her. He
ran his hands up either side of her legs. “We haven’t even gotten to the fun
stuff yet.”

He
found the upper edge of her control top pantyhose, which she’d chosen on her
mother’s advice for the TV appearance—
the camera adds ten pounds, sweetheart
—and
rolled them down to her ankles. In the fitted brown and pink suit she’d worn on
the show, Suzanne felt like half temptress, half little old lady. She attempted
to sit on the bed behind her, but it was too high to scale with her legs
immobilized. Dylan gave her a crooked grin, lifted her onto the bed by her
waist, and slipped off her shoes and hose. He rose to face her and kissed her
again, starting softly, and then building to something more forceful that eventually
pressed her back onto the bed, with him on top of her.

Dylan
continued kissing her—her face, neck, and collarbones—while he unbuttoned the
sensible suit jacket and silky pink shirt she’d ironed hours earlier in her own
hotel room, a few blocks away. Suzanne had had no idea, at three thirty this
morning, that Dylan was even in New York. Much less that they’d be on TV
together, he’d announce he was putting his career on hold for her, and that now
she’d be in the biggest hotel room she’d ever seen, letting him undress her.
And he loved her. She prayed her alarm wouldn’t go off to end the dream.

With
expert hands, he had her bra off in seconds. He cupped one breast and made an
elaborate circle around the nipple with his tongue, smiling up at her. He
gently bit down, sending a fiery thrill all over her. She gasped again, and he
made an approving noise as he kissed the other breast the same way. She arched
her back and instantly his hand was under her, supporting her and pulling her
in. With her suspended in air like that, his unyielding mouth traced the
midline of her torso down to her navel, pausing there to hover deliciously over
her belly with his hot breath.
Maybe it’s not so bad,
she thought,
that
we have a little experience
.

When
he reached the top of the little brown skirt, he lowered her gently to the bed
before unzipping it with utmost care. Her body was buzzy with excitement, amplified
by caffeine and lack of sleep. She willed herself to relax and stop quivering.
She took deep, slow breaths as he shimmied the skirt down and off.

He
stopped then, and looked at her for a while from the foot of the bed. Suzanne,
panting and nearly naked, thought she had never felt so exposed. Dylan seemed
to be taking a mental picture, in the unfiltered light of ten in the morning.
He would be seeing the bags under her eyes, the wrinkles at either side of her
mouth, spider veins on her calves. She felt squirmy and uncomfortable under his
gaze, wishing he would close the curtains.

Dylan,
on the other hand, looked fresh and boyish as always, still in the white Oxford
and jeans from the show. But he wore a serious expression, and Suzanne fought
hard to hold back the building anxiety threatening to overthrow her desire.
Just when she was about to ask him whether anything was wrong, he bent to kiss
the toes of her right foot, grinning at her. “You’re so beautiful,” he said,
kissing her ankle. “Even more amazing than I’d imagined. And I spent a lot of
time imagining.
A lot
.”

She
was fishing for a light remark to make that would ease the tension, but lost focus
as she felt his hot breath moving up her leg, to her knees, grazing her thighs,
and then hovering over her panties—the one piece of clothing she had left.
Through the lace she could feel the warmth of his mouth, and she wanted so
badly for him to devour her, she could have cried. But he moved up to kiss her
on the mouth again, and then pulled his head back a few inches. She saw the
serious look return.

“Oh,
the things I want to do to you,” he said, with a combination of a moan and a
growl. His voice was gravelly, and sexier than it had ever been on the radio.
He ran a hand from her shoulder between her breasts and down, letting it come
to rest on the swell of her abdomen. She ached with desire. “With your
permission, obviously. But I have one thing to ask first. A favor.”

Suzanne
had to admit, despite her constant goal of keeping the upper hand with Dylan,
there wasn’t much she wouldn’t have agreed to right now. If only he would do
those things he wanted to do. But she nodded, waiting.

“We
can stay right here all day, and you can have your wicked way with me all you
want.” He gave her the lopsided grin she had come to treasure. “In fact, we
don’t have to leave for days or weeks—we’ll live on room service if you want.”

“Okay,”
she breathed, still trying to think of a clever retort or some remnant of their
usual banter. Nothing came. His hand on her lower abdomen seemed to be clouding
all her thoughts.

 “But
just please promise me one thing: if you’re going to freak out and leave me here
alone, go today. Or tonight while it’s dark. It will suck, but I’m a big boy
and I’ll deal with it.”

Suzanne
shook her head in protest, but he continued. “I’m falling for you, Scarlett.
Have fallen. I’m pretty sure you feel the same way. But if you need to go, if
this isn’t right for you, I think right now I can deal with being just the next
guy on your list. Maybe.” He winced a bit and went on. “But if you’re here tomorrow
morning, if I get to wake up with your hair in my face and your body in my arms…well,
then, I won’t look back. My heart will be on the line. Don’t break it.”