“Lucky guy,” he said as he lowered her son carefully into his crib with a soft kiss to his forehead, “getting to share a bedroom with the prettiest girl in the world.”
As soon as Mason felt the mattress beneath him, he turned onto his stomach and curled into a little ball with his butt up in the air. “That’s his favorite way to sleep,” she whispered to Dylan as she bent over the crib and gave Mason a kiss good night. “I love you, sweet pea.”
Dylan reached for her hand and slid his fingers through hers before whispering, “You’re lucky, too. So damned lucky to have him.”
Any other guy she dated would probably have been beyond irritated that she shared a bedroom with her kid, but Dylan wasn’t like anyone else, was he?
“I know,” she agreed.
Mason’s eyes came half-open, and he peered at them as if trying to figure out whether it really was bedtime or if he should get up again to play with his new favorite playmate, so she quickly led Dylan out of the bedroom.
He drew her into his arms as soon as the door closed behind them with a soft click and she had checked the monitor in the living room to make sure it was turned on. “I had a great time with you tonight. With both of you.” His dark gaze was far more intense than his words would have indicated. “And I’m really glad you let me read his bedtime story tonight and put him to bed.”
“I had a really, really good time, too. Just like always. I’m so glad you were here with us tonight.”
“I am, too.”
“Watching Mason take his first steps completely erased how sick I felt over what you told me at the museum.”
“It helped me, too,” he told her. “More than you know.”
“It’s been such an amazing night…I don’t want it to be over yet.”
Dylan didn’t say anything in response, simply looked into her eyes as if he was not only trying to make sure she wasn’t just saying what he wanted to hear, but that she truly meant it.
“Stay.”
The word came out as barely more than a whisper, which wasn’t right. Not when she wanted him to stay with her tonight more than she’d ever wanted anything. It didn’t matter how quickly her nerves had risen, or that she was trembling against him. She needed him to know how much this night had—and would—mean to her.
“Please stay and make love with me, Dylan. I know we’ve only got the couch, but—”
“The couch is perfect,” he said as he stroked his hands down her back to the curve of her hips. “And don’t forget the kitchen table.” He shot a glance at the small rug in front of the gas fireplace. “The rug doesn’t look too bad, either. And that’s just the first three times.”
She laughed the way she knew he’d intended her to, and also heated up the way he clearly wanted her to, as well, from his wicked suggestions of all the places he wanted to take her.
She wanted him in all those places, too.
“You’re nervous,” he said, his voice gentle despite the heat that remained. “Tell me why.”
She was continually surprised by how much Dylan saw, and how deeply. After meeting his mother, his father, his siblings, she knew she shouldn’t be so surprised. But he was just so different from any other man she’d been with.
And still…instead of truly being able to appreciate it, and him, she found herself always holding her breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Which was why it was more than just the physical aspect of their lovemaking that had her insides spinning. Tonight had to be about total honesty between her and Dylan. Honesty might have been only one of the many things that had been absent between her and her ex, but it had been the most important.
“This is what I swore to myself I would never let happen again. This is what I’ve fought so hard against for the past year and a half.” She swallowed hard. “But instead of keeping strong, I just asked you to stay the night with me. I just begged you to make love to me. And the worst part of all is that if you were to leave right now, I’d feel emptier and more alone than I ever have before.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he promised her, and the answering relief that swept through her made her knees nearly as weak as his kisses had. “You are the strongest person I’ve ever met, Grace. I know what a risk you’re taking on me tonight after the way you’ve been hurt. I know you would never give yourself to a man if you didn’t trust him. To know I’ve earned even a little of your trust, even if I don’t have nearly all of it...” He smiled down at her as he brushed the backs of his knuckles across her cheek. “I’m nervous, too.”
His confession stole what was left of her breath, especially because she knew he wasn’t just saying it to try to make her feel more at ease by putting them in the same boat.
“Why?” She covered his hand with hers and drew it down so that his palm rested flat over her heart. “Why would you be nervous?”
“Do you really want to know?”
She would have said a quick and easy yes were it not for the fact that he was looking at her in a way that no other man ever had. She’d thought she was nervous about sleeping with him, but now she was a thousand times more nervous about his answer.
And yet, just as she couldn’t have pushed out of his arms and asked him to leave, there was no way for her to pretend she didn’t want to know his why.
“Tell me,” she whispered.
His mouth curved up, just enough for his eyes to crinkle at the sides. “I’m in love with you, Grace.”
Hadn’t she known it was what he was going to say? Hadn’t she read the truth of it in the way he looked at her? In the way he touched and kissed her? In the way he treated her son as though he was the most precious child in the entire world?
But that didn’t make the impact of his words of love any less forceful.
The only way she could keep her legs from giving out beneath her was to grip his hand still pressed over her heart, while his other hand on her hip held the rest of her steady. She knew he could see how much he’d just rocked her world, even more than he’d already rocked it by simply existing. And yet, just as he’d always gently pushed her to let him into her life since the day they’d met, he didn’t let her retreat from what he’d said now, either.
“I’m so in love with you that in one week, you and Mason have already become everything to me.” He leaned in so that his cheek pressed against hers and his lips were at her ear. “That’s why I’m nervous—because I want tonight to be perfect. Completely perfect.”