Regrets Only (38 page)

He
was so sweet and sincere, part of her wanted to pull him to her and promise him
that she would never break his heart. But in another part of her, the old
hesitation was still there. She loved him now, but how long would it last?
Could she be trusted with someone’s heart?

She
chickened out, and settled for their preferred method of communication. “I
don’t know…” she teased. “Maybe a broken heart is good for your career.”

Suzanne
was angry with herself as soon as the words left her lips. For once, he was
being sincere with her. How could she be so glib about it? She was confused:
she loved him deeply, wanted him desperately, and she was terrified of how out
of control everything felt.

But
her teasing comment didn’t seem to hit Dylan the way it felt to her. “That’s
it,” he said, with menacing playfulness. “You’re in serious trouble now.” He
held her down and tickled her, and she writhed beneath him, making a show of
trying to get away while they both laughed. Soon his smile faded and they were
kissing again. Suzanne sat up, pushing against him while they kissed, and found
to her surprise that the shaky feeling was gone.

She
unbuttoned Dylan’s shirt carefully and admired his lean, bare torso and the
tiny tufts of russet hair that emerged from the top of his jeans and under his
arms. She let her manicured nails linger on his skin, loving the way the flesh
rippled slightly beneath her touch. He closed his eyes and groaned, and then
pressed her back onto the bed again with a long, deep kiss. His mouth resumed
its roving across her skin, tenderly kissing and nipping at her neck and
shoulders, following her midline down until he was removing her panties with
his teeth.

Suzanne
thought she would explode with excitement while his mouth danced around its
goal, kissing her inner thighs repeatedly, and then the mound of flesh just
above her pubic hair and back again, grinning up at her the whole time. She
began to moan in pleasure and frustration, arching toward him, her whole body
begging. And then, finally, he inhaled deeply and sank his mouth onto her,
gently but fully, his warm breath finally connecting with its intended mark,
along with lips, teeth and…
oh!
tongue. At once, he was outside her,
consuming her like a warm comforting dish, and inside her, probing and
exploring her to a titillation she had never before experienced.

Suzanne
panted and moaned like she hadn’t done since…ever. She knew how to make the
noises men wanted to hear, and sometimes they expressed her pleasure, too, but
never before had she abandoned herself this way. Perhaps it was the safety of
the penthouse, where she knew they would not be overheard or maybe it was just
that she had no choice. She cried out Dylan’s name as though it was the last
word that would escape her lips, and he responded by making his movements more
forceful. It felt like mere seconds until the pleasure overwhelmed her, sending
her shuddering so violently into Dylan’s mouth that she was worried for a
moment that she’d hurt him.

But
the lopsided smile said it all. He was proud of himself, she could tell. Or
maybe he’d enjoyed it almost as much as she had, or both. “Damn,” he said
softly. She waited for him to say the standard things the occasion called for.
You
taste so good
, or
I love watching you come
, or something equally bawdy.
But what Dylan said next surprised her. “I do believe, Miss Scarlett, you could
break my heart right now if you wanted.”

She
sat up to kiss him, and he kissed her back, but gently pushed her hand away as
she reached for his jeans. He eased her back down and lay half on top of her,
kissing her deeply and massaging her with his hand. The second orgasm was
surprising; the third, unprecedented. She was beside herself, and seriously
expecting to wake any minute to find she’d overslept and missed
American
Breakfast
entirely.

Finally,
looking pleased with himself, Dylan kicked out of his jeans, returned to
embrace her, and pushed himself inside her as naturally as if they did this
every day. He moved with a slow, regular rhythm, looking and feeling like
something every woman would love to bottle and sell. To her shock, she felt
herself moving toward climax again. “I love you,” she said into his ear as she
trembled once more beneath him, violating her own rules about professing
emotion during sex. And then, to even her surprise, she spoke the truth that
had been building in her since the moment he announced his sabbatical on
national television. It seemed beyond her power to deny it now. “I’m going to stay.”

Suzanne
Hamilton had thrown out her own rulebook.

 “What?”
he said, breathless.

“I’m
not going anywhere,” she said, pulling him closer on top of her. “I’ll be here
in the morning. I promise.”

Dylan
let out a husky cry and she felt him tense, and then relax on top of her,
kissing her neck and muttering something she couldn’t understand. They lay like
that for a long time, spent and happy, listening to the sounds of their own
breath slowing to normal.

“Well,”
he said eventually, rolling next to her and wrapping her in his arms. “
That
lived up to my expectations.”

She
smiled and stroked his hair. The day’s events were surreal, and now that her
body was peaceful, her mind worked to understand everything that had happened.

“Are
you seriously taking a sabbatical?” she asked after they’d been quiet for a
while. “Or was that just the world’s most dramatic pickup line? Which
obviously
worked like a charm…”

He
laughed and turned on his side to face her, his elbow propping up his head.
“Truth?”

“Have
we ever done anything else?”

“Fair
enough. Honestly, I was already planning to take a couple of months off after
the tour anyway. The guys need a break. Eddie’s wife just had a baby; John’s
dad has been sick. We’re all a little worn out right now, and if you keep that
up you get bad music.”

Suzanne
realized that, like most people, she had been seeing the glamorous side of his
life, not the real person side. Dylan was a musician and an image in the press,
but it was just now occurring to her that he was also a boss, the CEO of a
company that floated or sank with him. Did he provide health insurance? 401(k)?
Could the drummer in a rock band take family or medical leave? She supposed she
would learn all of this, because this would now be her world, too.

The
truth of it struck her. She was now in this, for better or worse, whether they
got married or not. For an instant, the familiar sensation of panic tightened
in her chest; her legs felt the first tingling of a desire to scoop up her
clothes and run like hell. But she forced herself to take a deep breath and
nuzzle closer to him, tracing patterns across his chest with her finger.

“So
you were going to take a break anyway?” she asked.

“Well,
a short one. I’d been thinking when we planned this tour that we’d start work
on the new album at the end of this month—give the guys six weeks and then hit
it again. We’ve done stuff at the holidays for the last couple of years, too,
and then we were scheduled to record the album by the end of January. But then
after your little speech at the cabin, I talked to Yvette and cleared
everything through February. And we can push it back longer if you want. I said
a year this morning just to cover the bases.”

“That
must have been some conversation,” Suzanne said. She’d seen Yvette in an
absolute tizzy over the wording of a press release; she found it hard to
imagine the chipmunk-like woman after receiving news of at least a six-month
setback.

Dylan
shook his head, chuckling. “Yeah, she pretty much went supersonic on me. Dogs
were barking for miles around. But I suggested it would give her more time to
work on that charity album you’ve been demanding from us. Plus, I gave her a
bonus and put her on a plane to Hawaii. She’ll be all right.”

This
is how he gets you,
Suzanne thought.
A little charm, a little pampering, and he’s bending you to
his will.
“She’s probably happy, though,” he went on, “making maps of all
the places on the islands with cell service…rewriting my performance contracts…”

“So
did you arrange all of this—the show and everything?”

“Well,
kind of. Yvette’s been trying to get me to go on those morning shows forever.
Apparently a bunch of country singers are doing more of that, trying to catch a
younger audience before school or whatever. Anyway, they wanted me on
American
Breakfast
and I told them only if it included you and we could talk about
Bonita. The rest of it just sort of fell into place.”

They
lay silent for a couple of moments, both thinking about their shared
experience, shared loss. Suzanne’s pain had dulled, but it was still powerful
sometimes.

“I
never got to tell you, did I?” Dylan said after a bit. “That I tried to find
you?”

“What?
When?”

“That
first night we kissed. After I left Marci’s house. I tried to come back to find
you, but I got lost.”

“You
what
?”

“I
got lost in Alpharetta. Looking for Marci’s house. I drove around until, like,
three in the morning.” Then seeing her face, he reddened and tackled her
playfully. “Shut up! Everything looks the same there at night!”

“Really?
I hadn’t noticed,” she laughed. Suzanne ran her fingers absently over a
tribal-looking tattoo around one of Dylan’s biceps. “So, what happens next?”

“That
depends on you,” he said. “If you feel ready, we’ll do the album for next
summer and do an abbreviated tour. Actually, Eddie and I have been talking
about doing a small-venue tour for a while now—go play all the dive bars and
garden parties we used to do. And I was hoping, if you’re not too busy, maybe
you’d come with me. At least some of the time.”

“Won’t
that cramp your style? I mean, with the guys?”

“Did
you know Paul and Linda McCartney only spent a few nights apart the entire time
they were married?” he asked. “It didn’t seem to hold him back. Besides, I’m
the boss.”

“You’ve
thought about this quite a bit, haven’t you?” she asked.

“Well,
I did have some extra time on my hands this summer,” he said. “I pretty much
alternated between wishing I’d never met you, and trying to figure out how to
make it work. And cold showers, of course.”

“At
least you don’t need one of those today,” she said.

He
rolled toward her, grinning lewdly. “Want to make sure?”

Suzanne
shoved him away playfully. “Are you kidding? I’m exhausted. Besides,” she put
on her most dripping Scarlett O’Hara accent, “when I was brought to this
establishment I was promised room service and I expect you to keep your word to
a lady.”

He
laughed, rolled on top of her, pausing seductively. He reached across her for the
phone on the bedside table, handing it to her as he rolled out of bed on the
other side. “Order anything you want. Literally, anything. They’ll either make
it or find it for you, I promise,” he said. “I’ll have a cheeseburger and a
beer.”

“It’s
not even eleven yet,” Suzanne protested.

Dylan
just laughed. As the concierge inquired in a professional, if slightly husky
voice, how she could assist Mr. Burke today, Suzanne watched him cross naked to
the bathroom and get into the shower.

“Hello?
Mr. Burke?” the concierge asked. She had nearly hung up before Suzanne found
her voice to answer.

#

Several
hours later, Suzanne woke suddenly in the semi-darkness. She felt the arm
draped over her, heavy with sleep, and heard light snoring next to her. It took
a moment to remember where she was as the lights of the city helped bring the
room into focus. Dishes were still piled on a tray near the bed; clothes and
wet towels were scattered around the well-appointed room.

The
bedside clock informed her that it was one in the morning, but she felt as
though she’d had a full night’s sleep. She pieced together her memories of the
day: being on television, Dylan’s announcement that he was in love with her and
taking a sabbatical, making love to him for the first time (and three times
after that), showering separately and together, talking for hours, falling
asleep as the sunset gleamed in pink and orange through the massive windows. Now,
with all traces of the sun long gone, the significance of the day and its
events came back to her. His arm around her felt heavier the more she
remembered.

Despite
her best efforts to fight it, the familiar tightening in her chest appeared
like an old friend. This panicked sensation, and the relief that running away
produced, had been two of her closest companions over the years. They had
outlasted every man she’d been with, propelled her through every door,
protected her from hurt and, until now, from love.

She
turned to look at the man holding her. Dylan Burke—whose face had first become
familiar to her through the pages of gossip magazines, who she had insulted
openly before their first meeting, and who she had slowly come to adore—was
sleeping soundly next to her. He looked happy. It was a kind of peaceful
contentment Suzanne envied. Maybe, if she stayed with him, she would learn his
secret to staying happy in the midst of the chaos.