Dragonfly Kisses (9 page)

“Thought I was hot snot. All the guys in my platoon got drunk one night in the Philippines and got tattoos.”

“Why a dragon?”

He grunted. The dragon rippled again. “It’s a reminder that sometimes you need to breathe fire.”

She was studying his expression, so she noticed the tightness in his jaw. She traced it. “Breathe fire?”

“Fight. Fight like hell for something.” His Adam’s apple worked as though he was in the coils of a dark memory.

“I think that’s a good philosophy.” She said it to soothe him, but the words soothed her as well. She’d felt so out of control over the aspects of her life lately. The thought of fighting like hell, breathing fire to regain her identity, resonated. “And this one?” She thumbed the tattoo on his chest, the delicate dragonfly. She’d always loved dragonflies. So beautiful…and fragile.

His throat worked again. “Ah.” He covered her hand with his. “A reminder as well.” The tenor of his voice, the slight wobble, caught her attention. “I got this one for Lila.”

Her heart lurched. “Lila?” Some great love? A woman he could never forget? He had gone still, so she suspected as much. “Who is Lila?”

“My…daughter.” A reverent whisper. He stroked the ink as the word slipped out.

“I…didn’t know you had a daughter.” Silly thing to say. She didn’t know anything about him. Not really.

“She…passed.” He forced the words out, clipped and tight.

Cassie leaned up on her elbow and gazed down at his taut features; pain etched every line. “Oh, Dylan. I’m so sorry.”

He pulled her back down onto his shoulder so, she suspected, she couldn’t see his face. “Me too. She was a funny little thing.” He sighed. “She played the violin.” A chuckle shook his chest. “She was horrible.”

“No.”

“Oh yeah. It was like cats being tortured.”

Though he tried to hold her down, nestling her against his chest, she propped back up again so she could look at him. “I bet you listened, though, whenever she wanted to play for you.”

“Of course I did. I loved her. I loved her so much. I would have done anything for her. Anything to save her…” His voice broke.

“What happened?” She shouldn’t ask. But she couldn’t not.

A shadow flickered in his eyes. “It was congenital. A gene, they said.”

Cassie nodded. She knew. Her brother Mark had been born with a genetic tic. It had taken him too.

Dylan sighed and looked away. “We were lucky to have her as long as we did.”

She hated the pain, the tension she sensed in him, and tried to lift it by turning the topic. “And she liked dragonflies?”

“Loved them. We planted a dragonfly garden in the backyard, she and I. We would watch them flit around for hours.”

She didn’t bother to hold back her chuckle. “What’s a dragonfly garden?”

He laughed as well, but it was a tight offering. “I don’t know. Lila found the information online about flowers that attract dragonflies.” He glanced at her, his eyes warm and damp. “If you plant it, they will come. Apparently. Those damn dragonflies were everywhere.” His smile flickered, faded. “And then, when she…passed, they all left.”

“I’m sorry.” A stupid thing to say. And repetitious. But she couldn’t think of anything else.

“Now, whenever I see a dragonfly, I imagine it’s her. Coming by to say hello.” He colored, as though embarrassed by this childish confession, but Cassie understood the sentiment, more than he could know.

“How nice. I used to pretend the same thing after Mark died.” She muffled a chortle. “He had a thing for frogs.”

“Frogs?” Dylan tucked in his chin so he could peer down at her.

“Frogs. We lived near a pond and he would ‘rescue’ them. Drove my mother crazy. One time, when she was putting away his clean underwear, she found a drawer full of them in his room.”

“Yikes.”

“You should have heard the scream.”

She liked that she could make him laugh.

“Kids are funny.” This, he offered in a warm tone, but it froze on the last word, as though he’d realized what he’d said, relived a festering ache, and he closed up.

“Tell me more about her. About Lila.” She hoped it would help him, ease his pain, to talk about her. She hoped her question wouldn’t make him shut her out completely.

It did not.

He drew in a deep breath and pulled her closer. “She was adorable. Loved wearing tiaras and tutus. All the time. I loved watching her dance. Loved reading her to sleep…” He paused, as though wrapped in a moment long lost. “’One more chapter, Daddy,’ she’d say, even though she could barely keep her eyes open.”

“Did you read her one more chapter?”

“Of course.” He chuckled. “Especially if it was a good book. Sometimes I’d keep reading long after she fell asleep. Every morning she’d give me dragonfly kisses…”

“Dragonfly kisses?” Cassie wrinkled her brow. “I’ve heard of butterfly kisses.” She fluttered her lashes over his cheek.

“Yeah,” he sighed. “That’s it. But according to Lila, butterflies are lame.”

Cassie laughed, an explosive burst of joy for someone she’d never met. “I think I would have liked her.”

He cupped her head and pulled her in. Kissed her long and hard. “You would have. And she would have liked you.”

She couldn’t think of a better compliment. Not in the whole wide world.

She kissed him back and then proceeded to give him dragonfly kisses all over his body, until he howled with laughter himself. She loved the sound, the tenor of it. She reveled in his lightness of spirit. As though finally, after a long, dark winter, the sun had come out to shine on his soul.

They made love again in the shadows of night, taking pleasure and solace in each other and the knowledge they weren’t so very different. And together, they were not alone.

Cassie awoke in a warm nest of blankets and pillows, but she knew immediately, she was alone. She cracked open a lid and glanced around the room, bathed in the soft morning sunlight. Dylan was nowhere to be seen, but she could hear the shower running.

And she could smell coffee.

She must have slept like the dead. Then again, he’d kept her up most of the night. She still tingled. Pulling back the blankets, she looked down at her body. A shiver ripped through her at the sight of the evidence of his passion. Red spots where his beard had scraped her skin, a slight bruise on her hip where he had gripped her tightly.

The violence of their lovemaking should have horrified her. It did not. Because she had given it back to him full measure. She’d been with him the whole way.

In the entirety of her life, she’d never met a man who made her feel so alive, so wild, so free.

She tossed back the blankets and padded to the bathroom door. It was ajar, so she pushed it open and enjoyed the view.

A cloudy silhouette of a hot, muscled man, standing in a stream of steaming water. As he scrubbed his body, lathered in soap, his muscles bunched. An unfamiliar emotion welled in her breast. It was warm and ached. It felt like a…craving.

How could this have happened? And so quickly?

She’d just met the guy. Only spent one night with him. But when she looked at him, something inside her melted.

He turned and caught her ogling him. He grinned and slid open the shower door. “Care to join me?”

Did she.

But before she could answer, an oddly familiar tune rose through the room. It took a second to realize it was his ringtone. He turned off the water and stepped out of the shower, grabbing a towel. “Could you answer that? I’ve been expecting my manager to call and I’m all wet.”

“Sure.” She picked up the phone and punched the answer button. “Hello?”

Silence. And then a sharp female voice hummed over the line. “Who the fuck is this?”

Cassie stilled, paralyzed by the vitriol threaded through those words. “I beg your pardon?”

“Put Dylan on. I need to talk to him. Now.”

A command.

Cassie disliked being ordered around. Really disliked it. She swallowed her bile and adopted the sweetest, most professional demeanor she could manage. “And who is calling?”

“His wife.”

Her belly plunged.

Of course he had a wife. He’d admitted to having a daughter. Wives came along with the package. Didn’t they? She should have known.

He emerged from the bathroom with a towel wrapped low around his hips. She tried not to stare. He was so fucking hot with his hair slicked back and his face freshly shaved. Half naked.

She thrust the phone at him. “Your…wife.”

His features tightened. He took the phone but didn’t speak. He punched the end call button and tossed it on the bed. “Ex. Helen is my ex-wife.” Then he set his hands on her shoulders and drew her closer. “Did you really think I would do that to you?”

“Do what?”

“Start something like this if I were married?”

She dipped her chin and nibbled her lower lip. “No. Not really.”

He dropped a kiss on her forehead. “Good. Because I’m not that kind of guy. And I’m not married. She is, though. With a husband and a kid and another on the way.”

Cassie peeped up at him. “She was pretty adamant. Really wanted to talk to you.”

“I don’t want to start my day with a scream-fest.”

“She did seem a little…cranky.”

He blew out a laugh. “That’s one word for it. I can only imagine her reaction when a female answered
my
phone. I hope she wasn’t too bitchy.”

“She was a little, I guess.” She sighed and looked around for her clothes. They were strewn all over the room. “I should go.”

“Don’t.”

“I should.”

“Why?”

Her lips quirked. “All the bacon’s at my house.”

“Evil woman,” he growled. Then he pulled her into his arms. He was warm and damp and smelled fresh and clean and delicious. “When can I see you again?”

She melted against him. “Hmm. Soon, I hope.”

“When are you leaving for the mainland?”

“This afternoon.”

“Me too. So… Dinner? Tonight?”

Her heart soared. Dinner. Tonight. How wonderful—

Then she remembered. “I can’t. I have a family thing tonight. Sunday dinner.” It was the one immutable law of the universe—or at least of the French household.

His expression darkened. “Damn. I have a family thing tonight too. I forgot. Tomorrow?”

She nibbled her lip and struggled to pull up a mental picture of her calendar. She groaned. “Nope. I’m leaving on Monday for a two-week tour.”

“Two weeks?” His arms tightened. His hands roved, reminding her she was still naked. She nestled closer. His bare chest was warm and damp. “How can I make it two weeks without this? When do you get back?”

“The fifth.”

He frowned. “The fifth?”

“Late.”

“Okay then. Dinner on the sixth?”

She opened her mouth to agree and then remembered another commitment. She couldn’t believe she’d almost forgotten. “Can’t on the sixth. I’m doing a charity concert at the Remlinger Center.”

He stiffened. “The Remlinger Center?”

“Yes. But why don’t you come? We can have dinner after.”

He stepped away, taking all the warmth with him. She shivered in its absence. “I…can’t. I have…something that night.”

“And the night after?” She could feel him withdrawing, slipping away. She didn’t know why. And it hurt.

“I…don’t know. I need to check my calendar.” He made his way across the room and dropped the towel, dressing quickly, with short, harsh movements. Uncomfortable with the sudden shift in his mood, she found her clothes and dressed as well. Though it didn’t make her feel less vulnerable. He sat on the chair to pull on his shoes and glanced up at her, his expression unreadable. “I’ll call you. Okay?”

Her heart froze.

I’ll call you.

Not the nicest words to hear. Because she knew what they meant. Deep down, she knew.

He would not call.

He would never call.

And she had no idea what she’d done wrong.

Chapter Ten

It was hard leaving Dylan, especially the way things were, but Cassie knew, instinctively, it was time to go. Something had soured between them after that call from his ex-wife and she couldn’t, for the life of her, figure out what it was.

She made her way through an overgrown path in the woods to the back door of the house she shared with her friends, her feet like lead. Her mood was dismal.

It dropped even further when she stepped into the kitchen to find Bella had returned. When she saw Cassie, she crossed her arms, pressed her lips together and glared.

Lucy, bless her heart, was much sweeter. She ran over to Cassie and wrapped her in a hug. “Well?” she asked. “How was it?”

Cassie dipped her head. “Nice.” It had been. Until it hadn’t been.

With two fingers to her chin, Lucy tipped her face back up and studied her. “Are you okay?” It was annoying when Lucy saw things one didn’t want her to see.

“I’m fine.” To Cassie’s mortification, a tear eased out. She swiped at it.

“You need some coffee.”

Then again, maybe Lucy’s empathy wasn’t so annoying after all.

“Coffee would be wonderful.” Her belly growled. “And maybe some bacon.”

Bella’s frown darkened. “Bacon?”

“Shut up, Bella,” Lucy said in a no-nonsense tone. “This is an emergency.”

“Where did you get bacon?”

They ignored Bella. Cassie, because she needed to train all her attention on fixing her coffee—so she wouldn’t think of Dylan and get all weepy—and Lucy because she was busy pulling out the bacon.

Bella did not like being ignored. So she screeched, “What the hell is that? Where did you get bacon?”

“Oh. Are you making bacon?” Emily called from the loft. The house shook as she thundered down the stairs. “Oh, hi, Cassie! How was your date?” This, she sang.

Bella muttered something under her breath about how poachers should be shot.

“How’s your mom?” Cassie asked, because she felt it was prudent to turn the topic. Getting violent, as it was. Also, she really wanted something to distract her from the sadness welling in her chest.

“Oh, she’s fine.” Bella shot a glare at Lucy, but her attention drifted to the sizzling bacon.