CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Grace had spent the last thirty-six hours thinking. Mulling. Dissecting.
And wanting. Always wanting.
Saturday night, she’d told Dylan more than she’d ever told anyone else about her past…and then she’d gone a little crazy in his arms. The best kind of crazy, she thought as she pulled into the parking lot of his boathouse. But crazy nonetheless. She’d hoped to have a firm handle on everything by now, but the truth was that she was still going around and around in her mind.
She’d intended for the night to be nothing more than friends visiting an aquarium. But there was no point in trying to deny how good—or how natural—it had been to make out with Dylan on her couch, so she wouldn’t bother with that nonsense. She also wouldn’t try to tell herself that she hadn’t wanted more of his big, work-roughened hands on her. Not when she had wanted much more. But he hadn’t given her what she was all but begging for, hadn’t pushed her too far. Instead, he’d stopped and gone home completely unfulfilled.
Dylan had promised that they would go slow. Given his behavior on Saturday night, it looked as though he meant it. Which was why all her thinking, all her wanting, had her circling back again and again to the same place: If they truly could keep to slow while she also kept her eyes wide open this time, then maybe it would be okay to spend a few sexy hours here and there with him.
Attraction, orgasms—they were perfectly natural. And when they were with Dylan, they were perfectly perfect, too.
In any case, it wasn’t as if making out with him meant they were getting married. A few kisses, a few incredible orgasms, didn’t mean forever. Normal people kissed, touched each other. And the truth was that she was tired of fighting her own demons all the time, tired of taking every step with caution, tired of feeling she was going to have to keep paying forever for her mistake with Richard.
Just for a little while, while she and Dylan were working together on this magazine story, couldn’t she live a little? Have some fun, feel some pleasure like any other normal woman would let herself feel with a sexy man like him?
She’d been stunned by the way he had shifted from the gentle man he always was during the day with her and Mason to a hungry, dominant lover Saturday night. Stunned in the best possible way, she thought, as a little shiver rippled over her at the still-potent memory of the heat in his eyes, the desperation in his hands, when he’d torn through her lingerie. No one had ever ripped away her bra, her panties, as if he couldn’t wait another second to have her bare beneath him. He’d asked her—told her—what he wanted her to do, where to put her hands, even when to come for him…and it had been the greatest thrill of her life not only to do it all, but also to wait breathlessly for his next sensual command.
As she got out of her car, she took a deep breath of the salty-sweet sea air. It was time to make the shift from personal to professional, at least for a few hours. Coming back to his boathouse for their second interview was important not only so that she could ask him her follow-up questions, but also so that she could make sure she described the look and feel of his workspace properly.
Of course, that was right when she rounded the corner from the parking lot…and saw Dylan bent over sanding the side of the boat in the middle of his workshop, shirtless, his skin gleaming with sweat, his muscles rippling. Oh Lord.
Oh Lord.
She wanted his mouth, his hands, his body on hers again. Wanted to come apart for him, beneath him, against him, again and again. Wanted to discover just how much more pleasure there was to be had in his arms.
She took another deep breath, and then one more for good measure. Business. She needed to stay on track with her story.
But, as she let the last slightly ragged breath go, she knew she was going to have to ride out a few more seconds of being a very attracted woman first.
Grace had read several books on boat building to make sure that she understood the basics, but watching Dylan painstakingly sand a section by hand, then run his other hand over the smooth wood before he moved on to the next plank, almost felt like watching a man with his lover. Every boat he made, she sensed, meant a great deal to him. Who was this one for? What man or woman would be lucky enough to sail away on a boat that had been so painstakingly created?
As a writer, Grace saw the world through words first. But as she watched him work, she could see what a fascinating documentary someone could make here with Dylan. Both the visual story of the creation of a boat from start to finish and an in-depth look into the mind of the man who could turn planks of wood into magic.
Of course, she could easily guess that he would never allow anyone to film him. Not because he was hiding anything. It was simply that for all that he’d opened his work and his family to her, Dylan was a naturally private man.
It was why sailing suited him so well. He didn’t need accolades. Didn’t need to be seen by anyone as the best. He simply wanted to be free to build boats. Free to race them. Free to sail off in one to explore whatever corner of the world interested him. And she didn’t blame him for wanting to live his life according to his own rules when she wanted that very same thing—to live the life of her dreams without always looking in the shadows, without always worrying about being hurt.
“Good morning, Grace.”
Dylan put the sandpaper down and turned to her with a smile. A very male smile that was just smug enough to tell her he knew she’d been there all along and had been happy to let her watch him work shirtless.
Both of them had been happy about it, she thought as she returned his smile. “Is now still a good time for our interview?”
“Sure, but where’s Mason?”
“I booked a babysitter for him so that I could focus.”
“I thought you were going to bring him. I’ve seen how my cousins set up safe areas so their kids can play at parties. I was planning on it.”
He was sweet, so amazingly sweet to always think of including Mason. But even if her son could have played happily in a cordoned-off area of the boathouse while they did the interview, Grace had wanted to make sure that they couldn’t just fall so easily into pretend-family time again. It would be too easy, she could already see, to slip into the fantasy that the three of them really were a unit.
This isn’t forever, she reminded herself. One day Dylan would sail away while she and Mason stayed right here. But until then, they would appreciate every second with him.
“He seemed quite happy with the young, pretty babysitter, actually.” Grace had repeatedly reminded herself in the past half hour that she couldn’t watch over her son every single second. A couple of hours with a babysitter would be okay, even if leaving him this morning was one of the hardest things she’d ever done.
Grace moved farther into the boathouse. “Who is this boat for?”