Chapter Fifteen
Dylan
Chantel was in my arms, head on my shoulder, lips at my neck. And it was the most centered I’d felt all fucking day.
I carried her to the side of my bed, set her down, and just stared.
She was stunning. All silk and polish and expensive perfume in a bedroom with nothing going for it but clean sheets. Too elegant, too refined for this place. For me.
And yet, nothing about having her here felt wrong.
“Is there a secret to taking off this fancy dress?” I ran my hands down her sides, savoring the soft fabric and her curves underneath.
“No. Just the zipper in the back.” Her heated gaze searched mine.
I stepped in behind her, my fingers trailing across silk until I found the zipper. I dragged it down, the quiet rasp of metal the only sound in the room, revealing the arch of her bare back.
But as the dress fell away, so did my hands.
The temptation to explore her body was overwhelming. But I knew how this would go—touch, taste, take, possess her completely. And tonight, of all fucking nights, that was a bad idea.
“Don’t move.” I brushed my lips over her ear and inhaled the sweet scent of honey before forcing myself to move away.
She didn’t question me. Didn’t argue. She stood with the silk pooled at her feet, her body on display, waiting for whatever order I’d give next.
That kind of trust shouldn’t have been mine. Not tonight.
Fuck, maybe not ever.
I went to my dresser and pulled out a T-shirt. It was worn soft from a thousand washes, with the logo of my favorite Montreal hockey team faded across the chest. For a moment, I just stood looking at it.
Why did I want her here so badly when I had nothing to offer? How big of a prick was I, using her warmth to drown out another woman…and another fucking man?
Truth was, she deserved better than this. Better than me—a man whose head was so full of other people he couldn’t properly appreciate the one in front of him.
And yet I couldn’t bring myself to send her away.
When I turned back to her, she was standing exactly as I’d left her. She hadn’t moved a fucking inch. The submissiveness of that gesture hit me low, calling me back toward her.
My eyes traveled the length of her—the soft curve of her shoulders, the tight peaks of her nipples, the flare of her hips, the long line of her legs. All of her, achingly beautiful. And waiting.
For something I couldn’t give her.
Not that I didn’t want to. There was nothing I wanted more than to fuck her into oblivion. But after Sean, after the wedding, after she’d opened up to me about her dreams and goddamn aspirations, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.
I crossed the room and pulled the shirt down over her head before I could change my mind.
I was still an asshole.
But I was working on it.
She fixed her hair, pulling it free from the collar and brushing it out of her face. But her eyes were stuck on mine, searching for answers I couldn’t give.
I took her hand and pulled her into bed with me. She climbed in without a word and curled into my side like she belonged there. Her cheek found a spot just under my collarbone, and her hand settled flat against my chest.
I pressed my lips to the top of her head and let myself breathe her in.
For the first time all day, the noise in my head went quiet. Not gone. Just faded enough to let me fall asleep.
My dreams were filled with falling stars, and I was falling with them. Falling endlessly through a sky of blue silk.
When I woke up, Chantel was still tucked into my side, her breath warm against my neck, her hair a dark mess across the pillow.
Light filtered through the blinds, and the clock told me it was a hell of a lot later than my usual, but I didn’t move. I couldn’t bring myself to disturb her. Instead, I kept my eyes closed and listened to her breathe.
I’d slept the whole night. Actually fucking slept. No tossing, no replaying every moment of yesterday on a loop, no waking up at three in the morning with all my life’s failures waiting to greet me. Just sleep.
Chantel had done that.
I turned and looked at her—the freckles across her nose, the slight frown she wore even in sleep, the pillow crease on the side of her face.
There was nothing put-together about her right now.
No silk dress, no perfectly pinned hair, no sharp comeback waiting on her tongue.
Just a woman who’d shown up uninvited, slept in my T-shirt, and somehow made the worst day of my year feel survivable.
There was no guilt. No picking myself apart. No itch to get up and put distance between us before she could see me too clearly. Just a quiet I hadn’t felt in years.
Sean was a throwback. A version of me I used to be—loud, reckless, willing to set things on fire just to feel the heat. I’d needed that yesterday. But it wasn’t a place I could live.
Chantel was something else. Something more than I had any right to even hope for.
Her breathing changed before her eyes opened. A small inhale, a stretch of one hand against my ribs, and then her dark lashes lifted.
“Morning,” she murmured, her voice rough with sleep.
“Morning.”
She didn’t move out of my arms. Didn’t reach for her phone or sit up or do any of the things people do when they wake up in a stranger’s bed. She just blinked at me. “You stayed.”
“It’s my house, enchanté.”
A smile pulled at the corner of her mouth. “Smartass.”
I shifted onto my side so I could face her properly, and she rolled with me, her hand sliding up my chest to rest at the base of my throat. The T-shirt I’d put on her had slipped off one shoulder in the night, and the patch of bare skin there was driving me to distraction.
I leaned in and kissed her.
She tasted like warmth and the faintest trace of last night’s beer, and the soft sound she made when my tongue found hers went straight through me.
My hand found the bare curve of her hip under the shirt, my thumb stroking back and forth over her skin.
She arched into the touch, a slow ripple of her body that was somehow more provocative than anything we’d done in Jamie’s kitchen.
“Dylan,” she breathed against my mouth.
“Mm-Hmm.” I kissed the corner of her jaw. The hollow under her ear. The pulse beating fast at the side of her throat. My hand wandered higher, up under the T-shirt, finding the curve of her breast.
She made another sound—softer, hungrier—and I almost lost the thread of what I was doing. Almost let myself slip into the version of this where I rolled her onto her back and took what she was clearly willing to give.
I pulled back enough to look at her. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair a wreck, her lips parted and waiting for more. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever woken up next to.
“Stay there,” I murmured, brushing my thumb over her bottom lip. “Just like that. Let me look at you.”
She did. Of course she did. And the fact that she gave me that without question, without complaint, was its own kind of reward.
We lay there, tangled up, heat building between us, my fragile control the only fucking thing holding me back.
After a long stretch of silence, she let out a breath and turned her face into my hand. “I have to go,” she said, kissing my palm.
Something cracked under my ribs. “Now?”
“Soon.” She didn’t open her eyes. “I have to work tonight. It’s a long drive home.”
Home.
Just hearing her say it broke the stupid fucking fantasy my mind had been trying to build. The one where I woke up to her like this every day. Fuck, I was a fool.
I smoothed her hair back from her face, and pinched her chin, forcing her mouth up to meet mine. My lips devoured hers—hungry and unapologetic. I fucked into her mouth with my tongue, wishing it was my cock. Wishing there was time to make her come again.
When I finally pulled away, she whimpered, the sound traveling through me.
“I had a really good time, Dylan,” she said, breathless, her voice full of regret.
“Me too, enchanté.”
I kissed her once more, slow this time. Then I let her go.
She got up, gathered her dress from where it had fallen, and disappeared into the bathroom to change.
I stayed in bed and listened to the water run.
For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, I had no idea what was happening to me. But for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t sure I wanted to fight it.