Strapless (9 page)

“Not unless they want our business here. The city fathers didn't.”

“There's not another lingerie shop like ours. They'll snap up Wunderthings. They'd be crazy not to.” She gazed from the rear of the store to the front windows. People walking past glanced in, a woman with a kindergartner gazed inside, looking curious. Darcie dug in her bag for a business card, held it up so the woman would wait, then strode to the open door and handed it out. “Please, take this. And do stop by again when we've opened.”

“I will, thanks.”

Walt followed her. “We haven't even seen a lease, Darcie.”

“Details, details.” She peeked outside at their nearest neighbors. “We're between an opal shop and a store that sells power suits. We can't lose. From the skin out, it's three-stop shopping, right on this level. How much better can it get?”

In her bones, Darcie knew this was perfect.

“And downstairs, on the lower level, there are food stores galore. What could be more convenient?”

“A few hundred thousand in the account,” Walt muttered.

“You're so cheap.”

The real estate agent stepped in from the hall, a smile on her face. She'd known how Darcie would react to this site. She'd given them time to fall in love with the place.

“Marvelous, isn't it?”

“We'll take it,” Darcie said.

“Now wait a minute—” Walt protested.

“You know I'm right.”

Or so she needed him to think.

He sidled close to her. “What's that Aussie doing to you every night? I'm supposed to be the boss here.”

“You are the boss.” She batted her eyelashes demurely. And gestured at the real estate agent waiting in the doorway. “Now, please, deal with the nice lady.”

 

“What's it like, buying—I mean, dealing for—a sheep?”

On the following Monday Darcie asked Dylan the question, her hand in his while they strolled along at Circular Quay. He gave her a lazy smile that nearly lightened her growing sense of impending loss. With hot dark eyes.

“Not like buying a pair of bikini pants.”

“No, I wouldn't think so.” She flushed faintly but plowed on. In an abstract fashion Dylan's sheep station fascinated her. She couldn't imagine living in the middle of nowhere, as he did, but the business itself impressed her. So did his continued presence right here. Buying sheep was Dylan's official reason for lingering in Sydney, for
which she was grateful, but Darcie was another. His time, he'd assured her, was flexible. “You need a new ram for your herd, right? Breeding stock.”

“Flock, not herd. A herd is cattle.”

“Do you have the cow-sheep thing going on here? War between the ranchers like in the Old West?”

He smiled. “Where do you get your information?”

Darcie tapped her forehead with her free hand. “Right here.”

Dylan tucked a strand of her hair behind one ear, sending a shivery sensation through Darcie's whole body. “Your mind is a scary place, darling.”

“It's an active place. Creative. My mother always said so—not in a complimentary way.”

“I'm surprised you didn't conform then just to prove her wrong.”

Uh-oh. Dangerous territory. Darcie wasn't going there. Not now, not again.

“Let's just celebrate Australia Day, and leave our mothers at home.”

As if he remembered their conversation at the aquarium, Dylan didn't disagree. Swinging hands between them, he walked her to the catamaran that had started its tour at Darling Harbour, then stopped to pick up passengers here. The sun shone, the breeze stayed light, the day seemed perfect, really, like the QVB. Darcie meant to enjoy it. And Dylan. It was her last day in Australia, a fact she wouldn't dwell on. Yesterday he'd taken her to a shop on Crown Street filled with stunning Aboriginal art, as if they had all the time in the world. But Darcie suspected, despite his reassurances, that he should get home. Tomorrow, she and Walt would be on their United flight to Los Angeles and Dylan Rafferty would become part of her past. There seemed no way to avoid it.

“What'd I say?” he asked. “You're frowning.”

“Nothing. I was just…pondering sheep.”

“Counting,” he said. “You tired? We can go back if you want.”

To Dylan's room? He always seemed eager to end their
sight-seeing. Part of her didn't want to spend this precious day anywhere but in his bed. But the rest—because she might never come here again, no matter how sweetly he asked, allowed Dylan to help her on board the boat. It was named
Aussie One.
Oh, he certainly was.

Within minutes the catamaran was underway again, and Darcie tried to forget her misgivings, her mixed feelings, about going home. At the exit of the Quay, the boat glided into the harbor past the Sydney Opera House but Darcie scarcely noticed. What if she
could
stay here for a while? Oversee the needed renovations to Wunderthings' new space in the QVB, assuming the contract was approved? Become Walt's point man—woman—for the store? Put her own stamp on its display windows, its interior design?

Recalling her fantasy of Dylan as a model in the window, Darcie felt the breeze blow through her hair. She watched it lift Dylan's darker silk strands, inhaled the ocean scents and watched the smile play on his lips and in his dark eyes. She couldn't get close enough to him today, and crowded nearer. He slipped one arm around her shoulders, the other around her waist and held her tight at the rail.

“Watch.”

With his chin, he gestured at the opera house, the boat sliding past it, and Darcie's breath caught at the up-close view.

One of the most readily recognized buildings in the world had disappointed her at first sight. From the distance the Sydney Opera House appeared smaller than expected, not as impressive, and instead of the sparkling white she'd anticipated, it had looked dull, almost muddy. But here, looking up at its famous roofline of “sails,” she could see the individual tiles that comprised it and the awesome view brought tears to her eyes.

“It's immense, really.”

“Tons and tons of concrete, ceramic…” Dylan turned her face-on toward it. “Keep looking.”

Darcie did, then couldn't believe her eyes. In the shifting play of light and shadow across the water, the roof
changed color—from that flat brown to beige and then to cream, and finally, to a sheer, dazzling white. In the space of seconds it changed completely, magnificent and startling and graceful. She blinked harder.

Hormones, she might tell herself. But on her second day in Sydney they'd kicked in (thank goodness that hadn't bothered Dylan) and her period had been over for a week. Then why so blue?

All around her boat horns blared, people called greetings from the decks, the water churned with celebration. Aussies certainly knew how to handle their national holiday. As joyously, she thought, as Dylan handled her.

“Beautiful,” she whispered around the lump in her throat.

Dylan tipped up her face to kiss her and the word went through her again.

Darcie gazed back at the receding view of the opera house, glistening in the full sunlight now. She wished for a camera. But the postcards she'd bought would have to do. So would her memories of these two weeks, with Dylan Rafferty.

“What do you want to do next?”

“Eat lunch.”

“And then?”

“I'm waiting for the fireworks.” Darcie meant that night, with Dylan in his room, their last night, but she would indulge him. He was crazy about the actual star-bursts that would illuminate the harbor, he'd told her. All Aussies were.

“Any excuse will do,” he said, and kissed her again.

 

On the beach at Manly, their next stop that afternoon, Darcie's senses heated another ten degrees. The sun blazed hotter in the blue Australian sky. In her new bikini she basked in its warmth, and the ever growing heat in Dylan's eyes.

But if Darcie had felt naked before, she felt positively exposed now. The crescent of beach, half an hour's ferry ride north from Sydney, was jammed with sun worship
pers, half of whom seemed to be cavorting on the sand or taking in the rays without most of their clothes. The women did sun topless here, she could report to Gran, and Darcie wanted to crawl inside her own skin to hide.
You have nice breasts,
Eden had said. But
yowsah.
Look at that. And that. And those.

By comparison with other women here, she felt her breasts looked skimpy, malnourished. Famine Barbie At the Beach.

Fanned out around her on every square inch of golden sand from the water that lapped against the shore in the sheltered cove to the row of towering Norfolk pines by the nearby street lay dozens—hundreds?—of sleek Aussie females, darkly tanned, scantily dressed. Bikinis, like opals, seemed to be the choice for most.

“Good grief,” she murmured, though Dylan seemed unimpressed.

His mouth touched her ear, making her shudder in reaction.

“Take off your bra.” Darcie started to protest and he said, “Shy, darling?”

“No. I just…we don't do that in America.”

And in Cincinnati? Ha. Her mother, her father, if not Annie would die if they knew Darcie had even considered baring herself to the sun, the crowd and Dylan. Not that
he
hadn't seen her “wares” before.

He propped himself on an elbow and studied her.

“Chicken.”

“Sheep,” she said, tracing a line with her index finger across his smile. “You think I should follow the flock? When I see the men around us taking off their skinny little Speedos, and you join them, I'll reconsider.”

“I think you're chicken.” He smiled behind his sunglasses then trailed a finger down her side. Her mostly nude side. “I also think you want to…almost as much as I want you to. Truth or dare.”

“I'm not playing.”

Dylan sighed in obvious disappointment. “See that girl over there?” He craned his neck to look back over his
shoulder at a nearby blanket. A woman was lying on her back, alone. “She's about your size, but hers are tilted. And her nip—”

Darcie slapped his hand. “Pervert. Voyeur.”

“I'd rather watch you. I'd rather…” He trailed off, frowning. Dylan flopped back onto one of the beach towels they'd bought several blocks away in one of the souvenir shops. “Hell,” he nearly whispered, “I can't bear the thought of you leaving tomorrow.”

Alarmed, Darcie gently put her hand over his mouth to silence him.

“Don't. Let's not talk about that today.” She couldn't bear it.

He turned his head away from her touch.

“I wish we didn't live so far apart.”

“Me, too.” She couldn't deny that. But Darcie had almost conquered her earlier sorrow about her flight tomorrow over thousands of miles of open ocean—not something she cared to dwell on in any circumstance. Now that she was leaving Dylan…

As if he sensed her renewed unhappiness, he rolled onto his elbow again and smiled at her, a sexy glint in his eyes, she supposed, though she couldn't see them behind his shades, a definitely intent slant to his lips.

“I know how you can make me forget.”

He moved closer until his hip nudged hers. His hard, warm thigh touched Darcie's and she tingled. She could feel herself loosen, tighten in different places, right here on the beach. Across the street, where traffic moved up and down in front of the hotels, where horns tooted and boom boxes vibrated on the warm summer air, people walked and bicyclists rode and skate boarders glided. Hardly private.

“Take off the top, Matilda. Please.”

“You're a very bad man.”

As if to prove the point, he tugged at the string around Darcie's neck. Before she could move to stop him, Dylan had drawn her bikini top down. He reached behind her
to pull the tie at her back and she felt a sensuous slither along her skin.

Darcie tried to turn over onto her stomach but he splayed a hand across her abdomen. “Oh. God,” she managed.

And then she was naked to the hot sun, and Dylan's eyes. And those of anyone else who walked by or glanced over.

“Spread your fingers on your chest.”

She gazed up at him blankly. The sun felt good, actually.
Look at me, Ma.
The closest thing to skinny-dipping. Janet would turn ten shades of red, not from sunburn. But all at once, with the warmth upon her skin, everywhere, Darcie liked it. When she still didn't move, Dylan lifted her hands, placing them over her breasts, covering her. Except that her nipples poked between her fingers. Hard. Like diamonds, not opals.

Dylan's gaze narrowed, heated.

He scooted down the beach towel, along Darcie's side, until his mouth reached the level of her breasts. He used one hand to turn her, slightly, so he could…

Dear God. He had drawn her erect nipple into his mouth. His tongue flicked against Darcie's fingers and she moaned aloud.

“You want to get a room here?” he whispered.

“No.” No, she didn't. She doubted they could rent a room today, despite the many hotels at hand. All would be booked by now. And she wanted him to go on kissing her like this forever, right here, out in the open on the beach at Manly where the whole world could see them—or at least all the Sydneysiders here to celebrate Australia Day. “No,” Darcie repeated as he gently sucked and sensation pooled low inside her and Dylan's arousal jutted against her thigh. “I'm…still waiting for the fireworks.”

 

“How's it coming?” Dylan asked late that night.

“Just…fine.” Darcie groaned into his mouth. Back from Manly, they were lying on Dylan's bed, in Dylan's room at the Westin, and if Sydney had created the most awe
some spectacle of fireworks ever seen over Darling Harbour a few hours ago, that was nothing. In Dylan's inspired hands she was turning into an incendiary device. “I'd say another minute, two at the most and I'll—”