ANNABELLE didn’t hesitate, or push away. She kissed Dylan back.
Wrapping her arms around his neck and keeping the gloved parts out of the way, she stepped closer so that they were hard against each other. She drank the taste of his mouth like wine, with eager, parted lips. She closed her eyes.
It felt so good. So right. As if it should have happened days ago, and, at the same time, as if now was the perfect moment.
Dylan spread his hands and ran them across her ribs, then up to her breasts. He took their weight and lifted them, searing his thumbs across her hardened nipples. She felt his fingers whisper just above the neckline of her top, then climb to stroke the loose hair back from her hot neck.
She had to stretch up on tiptoe to hold him without getting the wet gloves on the back of his shirt, and she teetered. It was a very satisfying form of unsteadiness, with his solid support against her. He whispered hotly in her ear, ‘I’ve got you.’
‘I know.’
‘Not letting you go.’
‘Don’t. Please.’ She printed kiss after kiss on his mouth—kisses that were hot and hungry and eager for more. His response swept her away. His kisses were imperious, confident, teasing and meltingly sweet.
‘Hold me, Annabelle,’ he said fiercely against her mouth. ‘I want to feel you.’
‘I can’t. The gloves…’
‘Doesn’t matter.’ He gathered her more tightly against him, driving the breath high into her lungs. She felt giddy. Just wanted to laugh and cry and kiss him for hours.
‘Mummy! Clean a baffroom now?’
She heard Duncan’s running feet on the carpet, and Mum’s smoke-darkened voice, still on the balcony. ‘One more story, Dunc?’
‘No. Help clean a baffroom now.’
Annabelle pulled away from Dylan, her breathing still fast and high. Dylan turned to face the sink and grabbed a sponge. There were wet splodges on the back of his shirt.
‘I’ve dripped cleaning stuff on you,’ she said.
‘I told you, it doesn’t matter.’
Duncan arrived, oblivious to the struggle going on in both of them and to the nuances beyond their trivial words. ‘I need a sponge,’ he announced.
He loved helping to clean the bathroom, because it was such a lovely messy job, and the more enthusiasm he displayed, the messier it was.
‘Take him for a walk?’ Dylan suggested. ‘I’d like to.’
But Duncan was stubborn, and wouldn’t go. He was going to help clean that bathroom or collapse in a screaming heap, and that was that.
‘I’m not going to push it,’ Annabelle told Dylan quietly.
Mum had also arrived in the kitchen now, and she nodded. ‘Best not.’
‘I’d win eventually—I’m bigger than you, Duncan!’ Annabelle went on. ‘But the price is pretty high, late on a Friday afternoon. Can’t send him with you, Dylan, if he doesn’t want to go, since he doesn’t know you that well.’
They got the cleaning done eventually, with Mum in the background berating herself for being so useless.
‘Now, about dinner,’ Annabelle said to her finally.
‘Don’t worry. I’ve still got a couple of those lovely leftover take-away meals you brought me a few weeks ago. I’ll thaw one out in the microwave.’
When Annabelle finally reached Dylan’s car—Duncan still had a streak of dried cleanser running down his arm—she only wanted one thing. Dylan Calford, holding her in his arms and kissing her silly.
‘We have to go back and fix the tyre so I can drive my car. After that, are you…coming back to my place?’ she asked him. Didn’t even try to pretend it was a casual suggestion.
He glanced across at her, and her heart caught in her throat at the look in his eyes. ‘Am I invited?’
‘Yes. You are.’
It was still fairly early when they got home. Dylan had followed her all the way from the hospital. Because he was still unsure of the best route, or to check that she was driving safely? After they’d changed the flat tyre, he had commented on a strange noise her engine was making. At the moment, she didn’t care about either the noise or Dylan’s motivations.
Duncan wanted a swim. ‘I’ll take him,’ Dylan offered. ‘I’ve got a pair of board shorts in the back of my car this time.’
‘Want to go in the pool with Dylan, Dunc?’
He nodded energetically, which surprised Annabelle a little. He didn’t always take to other people straight away.
While they were swimming, she tossed some salad, heated garlic bread in the oven and made a quick pesto out of a big bunch of mint leaves from the garden, crushed walnuts, parmesan cheese and olive oil. The three of them ate beside the pool at the rickety white plastic table and chairs which Annabelle was desperate to replace but couldn’t afford to.
That didn’t seem so important any more. There was a satisfaction in knowing that everything around her was her own, and that she was finding ways to manage without the effortless luxury of Alex’s wealth.
Alex had never spent more than a few minutes at her house. ‘Best if we go to my place.’ But that wasn’t always true. It wasn’t ‘best’ every single time, even if Alex’s pool was twice as big, and his house was cooler, his fridge had more drinks in it and his housekeeper would clean up after them. Eventually, always going to his place created an imbalance.
Dylan doesn’t seem to mind coming here, she thought.
By the time they’d finished eating, Duncan was ready for bed. ‘Quick as we can tonight,’ she promised Dylan.
‘I’ll still be here when you get back,’ he said.
‘I hoped you would be,’ she answered, a little shyly.
He was still wearing only the pair of baggy, colourful board shorts he’d put on to swim with Duncan, and she had to fight to keep her gaze from lingering on the muscular contours of his tanned shoulders and chest. He seemed casual about it, not showing off.
Too distracted by her own body, perhaps. She recognised the way he was watching her, eyes softly alight, and it made her feel alive, expectant, more sensual than usual. She wasn’t used to the feeling, but she liked it.
‘Thank you, Duncan, sweetheart,’ she whispered to her little boy, when he drifted off to sleep before she’d even finished his story. ‘This was a good night for getting sleepy early.’
She kissed his smooth little forehead, brushed back some sweat-dampened tendrils of hair, adjusted the position of the cooling fan that played over him while he slept, and went out to Dylan by the pool.
She went straight into his arms.
‘Hello,’ he said. He brushed his mouth across hers. ‘Nice surprise.’ His arms tightened around her.
‘Is it?’ She looked up into his face, so close to hers. ‘Nice, I know, but a surprise?’
‘You came right up to me. Didn’t break your stride. You held out your arms.’ His mouth was a fraction of an inch from hers now as he spoke. ‘It was great. I wanted you to do that, but I didn’t think you would.’
‘Why not, Dylan?’
He smiled. ‘Things never happen exactly the way you want them to. I’ve been having this great scenario playing in my head about standing like this with you in the pool, and slowly peeling your swimsuit from your body.’
‘And why can’t that happen?’
‘Because I’m slowly going to peel your clothes off right here instead.’
‘Gee, I walked right into that one, didn’t I?’
He just laughed, and began to slide the straps of her top off her shoulders. Annabelle closed her eyes and let it happen. His touch made her throb and pulse all over. At first, she was so overwhelmed by sensation that she couldn’t move, but when he slid her top down to her waist, unfastened her skirt and dragged both garments down over her hips, she suddenly wanted to share in his exploration.
How did he feel? Was his skin as hot and sensitive as hers? Or was it still cool and satiny from his earlier swim? How would he react when she touched him? Would he—?
Ah, yes! She felt a delicious sense of power as he groaned. Letting her eyelids flutter open for a few seconds, she saw that his eyes were closed and his head was thrown back. He was dragging his teeth across his bottom lip, as if he’d reached a point where pleasure almost became pain.
Wanting to soothe him, she left his board shorts hanging on his hips, low and precariously positioned, cupped her hands around his jaw and kissed him with soft, tender lips. She loved his hungry response.
Thirty seconds later, they lost their balance, made it worse by clinging to each other too hard and crashed into the pool, still locked in each other’s arms. Both of them came up laughing.
‘Did you do that on purpose?’ he asked.
‘No. But I’m glad it happened. It’s lovely.’
The water felt good, so milky mild in this temperature that there was no shock, just an invigorating freshness. They stood up together, and he brushed the hair back from her face then reached around and unclipped her bra. ‘Don’t need this. Or these…’
Her top and skirt were still bunched across her hips. He slid them down and she wriggled, helping him. His board shorts had lost their last tenuous hold on his hips as they’d hit the water. He kicked his way out of them, then curled himself low in the water to remove her own clothing.
The sight of his wet, dark head so close to her upper thighs made something twist deep inside her. She sank back in the water, floating on her back, and shook skirt and top and underwear off her feet. Dylan scooped his arms beneath her and held her against him, looking deep into her eyes.
‘So…’ he said.
‘So…’ she echoed.
‘Funny, the way things turn out!’
‘Mmm.’
Funny, and a little frightening. She could feel him pressed against her in graphic detail. One full breast was cushioned against his chest, and the other nudged his cupped hand as he held her. Her hip was pressed into his stomach, very low down…
She had slept with Alex, but not until their relationship had already been established and serious, running along in a groove which both of them had already recognised was heading to marriage.
Alex had always been courteous about it, softening her up with a lavish meal and wine, compliments and attention, as if he had to coax her into it, as if they only made love because of his needs, never hers. It seemed incredible to her now that she’d actually responded to that. She’d liked it. Why? Alex had been right. It had been about his needs. She’d never felt any urgency of desire for him. Was that why she’d responded to his courteous approach?
With Dylan, it was different. Desire was pulling on her. Desire was telling her to ignore the fact that they didn’t really have a relationship at all. That didn’t seem important at the moment. In fact, she preferred it this way.
There was no sense of appropriate transactions taking place, the way there had been with Alex. Dinner in exchange for love-making. Marriage in exchange for her good name and breeding. Security in exchange for wifely support and the creation of heirs. Despite all the problems Alex’s proposal had promised to solve, at some deeper level their relationship had hedged her in.
Now she felt free.
Wild, too, in a way she’d never let herself feel before. Vic had always been the wild one. Annabelle had felt constrained to be the opposite—the one who’d given support to Mum, the one who’d pleased Dad by working hard towards a good career, the one who’d set an example in the hope of reining her sister in.
There was no one for whom to set an example tonight, no transactions laid out on the table. There was just her and Dylan, a sultry night and the caress of the water.
Funny, the way things turned out.
Suddenly, she wasn’t frightened any more at all. She wanted it, and she wanted it to be like this—open-ended, non-contractual and, above all, physical.
‘You’re beautiful, Annabelle,’ Dylan said softly. His black eyes glinted and danced with reflected light from the surface of the pool.
‘I’m not,’ she answered automatically. ‘I—’
‘Don’t argue. Don’t. You’re beautiful. Don’t know whether to stand here kissing every inch of your wet skin for another hour or whether to take you to bed right now. Help me decide. We’re going to bed, right?’
‘If we weren’t, I wouldn’t have let you—’
‘Didn’t think so.’ He smiled. ‘Appreciate that about you. No games. I hate games.’
‘Then take me to bed now, Dylan.’
He carried her as far as the grass just beyond the pool gate, then set her on her feet and reached for the towel hung over the pool fence. Annabelle didn’t want to lose his touch, not for a second. She pulled on his hips, feeling the swift, satisfying brush of his arousal across her stomach. He shuddered and his arm came around her back, anchoring her wet breasts and chill-hardened nipples against his chest.
With the towel left dangling in one hand, he kissed her—kissed her mouth and her neck, her throat and her breasts. They stood entwined together like that for a long time, cool and wet and naked, lost in the taste and feel of each other. When finally he dragged his mouth from hers and wrapped the towel around them both, she was almost dry, and so was he.
‘What was this towel for? I’ve forgotten,’ he said.
‘To make love on, I presumed,’ she teased. ‘Like a picnic blanket.’
He didn’t answer, but his grin was wicked, and the glint in his dark eyes was even wickeder. One flick of his outstretched arms laid the big, fluffy towel on the grass.
Annabelle gasped. ‘Dylan, I didn’t mean it.’
‘Too bad. You shouldn’t say things you don’t mean to a man in my condition. A man, what’s more, who was anticipating this eagerly enough to think of protection.’ Annabelle heard the crackle of a small packet in his hand.
‘The neighbours—’ she protested.
‘Won’t see a thing. It’s dark.’
He touched her teasingly, his hands light and seductive. Annabelle knew he must have felt the way she shuddered, the way she moulded herself against him and responded.
‘Do you mind that I was thinking ahead?’ he asked.
‘I was, too. But I hadn’t…come up with anything. So, no, I don’t mind.’
‘Good…’ She hardly realised what he was doing until he had her on the ground, pinned beneath him and looking up into his grinning face.
He traced the tip of his finger over her lips, along her jaw, down her throat and between her breasts, then he cupped her—so lightly that his touch felt like the brush of some silky fabric.
‘Decision time, Annabelle,’ he said softly. ‘Do you want to go inside?’
‘No…’
‘Good,’ he said again, then propped himself up on his elbows, on either side of her ribs. ‘Because neither do I.’
Wild. It was wild. A fever of hands and mouths, pressure and rhythm that caught Annabelle up in a tornado of sensation and didn’t let her go until both of them had reached a passionate release. In its aftermath, she lay there on the rumpled towel still throbbing, hot and swollen, clinging to him as if he were her life-raft in a huge black ocean.
She felt shaken by the realisation of how close she’d come to never knowing that a man and a woman could come together this powerfully. The chemistry between herself and Alex had been wrong, and she’d never realised it. Couldn’t have realised it until she’d experienced a chemistry that was right.
Suddenly, she felt sorry for the other man. All his wealth and professional success, his sense of control and of his own importance—that fatal combination of character traits which had encouraged him to select her as his future wife and then turn on her the moment he felt she’d let him down. All of that added up to so little that was truly important.
And had Vic, after all, with her flamboyant and headlong dance through life, discovered an essence that Annabelle had overlooked?
After a long interval of lying still, entwined together and saying nothing, Dylan picked up her hand and pressed his lips to her knuckles one by one, and then to each fingertip.
‘What are you thinking, Belle? I can hear something ticking in there.’ He knocked lightly on her forehead, then turned it into a caress.
‘That maybe I’m starting to understand my sister better than I once did.’
‘Yeah? Tell me.’
‘Only because—I mean—Gosh! Can’t explain!’
‘Try,’ he invited.
‘Oh, OK. Um, OK.’
But she was distracted. The unaccustomed heaviness of sated senses felt too good, and when Dylan stretched out his fingers to brush them across her nipples, she was mesmerised by the sight, and by her own response.
She tried again. ‘I’m just…thinking about things I’ve missed out on that Vic instinctively knew.’
‘Oh, being a little selfish occasionally. Responding to what feels good. Not asking too many questions.’ She said a bit more, then stopped, wondering if any of it had even made sense, let alone been worth his attention. ‘I’m sorry,’ she finished.
‘You’re allowed to talk about her. About anything. Just because my hands like to wander, it doesn’t mean my attention is.’
‘Maybe it’s my attention that’s wandering.’
‘Where’s it going?’
‘Inside. To somewhere a little more comfortable.’
‘Sounds good.’
And it was good. It was fabulous, all over again. They fell asleep on her bed, tangled in each other’s arms, and Annabelle didn’t awaken until the early hours—the darkest hours—when she was jolted from sleep by the sound of glass shattering in her bathroom.
For several seconds, she was disoriented and panicky. Who was there? What were they doing? Where was Duncan? Safe? Her heart was pounding in her ears, and she covered the distance from deep sleep to high alert far too fast. Then she heard Dylan’s voice, swearing.
‘What happened?’ she called.
But he didn’t hear.
She rolled clumsily out of bed, still naked and feeling suddenly vulnerable. There was no clothing handy to put on, unless she opened a drawer or wardrobe and scrabbled around in the dark for a T-shirt or a dress.
Heading for the bedroom door, she croaked, ‘Dylan?’
‘I knocked over a bottle of cough medicine and it broke,’ he called. ‘I’m sorry. It’s a real mess.’
‘That’s OK, as long as you didn’t cut yourself.’
She reached the bathroom, just outside her bedroom and to the left, and at that moment he turned on the light. It blinded and disoriented her afresh, and Dylan had his hand shading his eyes, too.
‘I shouldn’t have been fumbling around in the dark,’ he said. ‘Should have turned this on straight away. But I didn’t know if the light would wake Duncan up.’
‘It wouldn’t have. And apparently the breaking glass hasn’t either.’
She grabbed a towel, wrapped it around her body and tucked the end down in front, between her breasts. As a covering, it was both uncomfortable and inadequate, and if Duncan did awaken and she had to cuddle him, it would be bound to work loose. Tiptoeing along to his room, however, she saw him still fast asleep.
Back in the bathroom, she found Dylan picking pieces of lethally sharp brown glass out of the puddle of sticky pink syrup that was still spreading wider beside the basin and threatening to drip onto the floor. The mirrored medicine cabinet above the basin gaped open, and several of the bottles and packets were out of place.
‘Got somewhere to put this?’ Dylan asked, holding out the handful of sticky glass slivers he’d collected.
‘Here.’ She grabbed one of Duncan’s plastic pouring cups from the side of the tub and gave it to him.
‘When I’ve got all the big pieces, we can wash the rest down the sink.’
‘What were you looking for in the cabinet?’
‘You’ve got a headache?’
‘Uh…yes.’ He nodded. Then he frowned.
‘I haven’t got anything very strong.’
‘Just to take the edge off.’ He controlled a sigh. ‘I should head home, too.’
‘Because of the headache?’
‘No, because of Duncan.’
‘Oh, right.’
‘Best, isn’t it?’
‘I hadn’t, um, thought that far ahead. But, yes. You’re right. It’s best.’
He stopped fishing for bits of glass and looked at her. Looked at her, actually, for the first time since she’d stumbled into the bathroom, blinded by the sudden light. He smiled, too. ‘That doesn’t mean I can’t come back again another night. Quite soon, I’m hoping.’
She relaxed, and wasn’t sure why she’d been tense in the first place. Just the shock of thinking for several seconds that she had a violent stranger smashing glass in her bathroom at three in the morning?
‘I’m hoping it’s soon, too,’ she said. ‘And I’m sorry about your…your headache.’
Because why would Dylan say he had a headache if he didn’t?
‘Annabelle, I’m a little bit worried.’
‘Yes, Mum?’
‘I’m probably just being silly.’
‘I’m sure you’re not. Tell me.’
‘Well, I just got my credit-card statement, and none of this quarter’s bills are on it, and it seems as if they should have—’ She broke off to cough, and Annabelle waited. She was standing in the hospital’s main foyer, from where she often phoned Mum during her lunch-break. ‘Except that I haven’t received any reminder notices,’ her mother continued. ‘But what if they cut off the phone?’
‘Let’s not worry about that yet,’ Annabelle soothed. The phone obviously hadn’t been cut off yet, since Mum had phoned from her unit. ‘I’m coming over straight after work, after I’ve picked up Duncan, but we’ll be later than usual, because we’ll have to get the bus. The garage said the car won’t be ready until five.’
‘All right.’
The car engine’s recent strange noise had turned into an urgent need for replacement parts which Annabelle knew was going to cost hundreds. She’d taken it back to Dylan’s car mechanic, since the location was convenient and they’d charged a little less than she’d expected last time.
No more child-care fees after this week, and there’s still some room on the credit card…
‘But I gave Dr Calford my credit card,’ Mum was saying. ‘Could he have made a mistake and—? But, no,’ she interrupted herself. ‘That seems impossible. I just can’t understand why nothing’s appeared on the statement.’
‘I’m sure there’s an explanation. Mum, I have to go and get ready for the afternoon list. Just don’t even think about it until I get there, OK? I’m sure it’ll be something to do with the issue date of the statement, that’s all.’
It had only been ten days since the bills had been paid. Dylan wasn’t operating today. He’d had a seminar to attend in the morning, and a fracture clinic in the afternoon. They’d seen each other on the weekend, and they were seeing each other tonight, and Annabelle was hugging the whole thing to herself like a big box of chocolates that she wasn’t planning to share.
Happy about it. Happy about him. Happiest because she wasn’t thinking beyond now, tonight or this week. She was just letting it happen—something she’d never done before in her life. When she got back to the nurses’ changing room, there was a note from Dylan in her locker.
‘Dropped in but missed you,’ he’d written, in his confident doctor’s scrawl. ‘Was hoping we could grab lunch before my clinic, but Barb mentioned you were running some errands. See you tonight. Dylan.’
The afternoon’s list was uneventful, the bus was on time at five past three and Annabelle picked Duncan up just fifteen minutes later than usual. This was his last week at Gumnut Playcare, and every time she saw the way his face changed from glowering frustration to sparkling happiness when she arrived there, she was thankful about it. Today, as icing on the cake, there was another ‘incident note’ in his pocket. He’d hit Ryan over the head twice with a block.
At Mum’s, after another bus ride, he was difficult for much of the time. Wouldn’t stop jumping on the couch and running around and around the living room. When Annabelle got angry with him, he got angry back, and shouted a word he certainly hadn’t learned in her company.
She ignored it completely, but knew that her voice was tear-filled as she said, ‘What am I going to do with him, Mum?’
‘He’s two, love, and he’s active and hungry for life. If he was growing up on a farm, he’d be fine. You’re doing everything right, and we both know he has a loving little heart underneath.’
‘Next week…’
‘I’m still worried it’s going to be too much for you.’
‘It’s not forever. Just until he settles down. When he starts school, I hope. And I’m worried it’s going to be too much for you!’
‘Nonsense!’ Brave words, fragile tone. Then Mum coughed and struggled for breath, needed her oxygen, but was determined to give Annabelle the credit-card statement to look at first.
‘Are the bills filed away, Mum?’ she asked, when things had settled down a little.
A little. Duncan was still jumping on the couch. Annabelle decided to let him do it, this once. Some kids, apparently, never even thought of jumping on couches. What would that be like? she wondered.
‘No, I got them out again,’ Mum said.
‘It does seem as if the payments should have appeared on this statement. Let me get their transaction numbers and phone the enquiry lines, see if there’s been some kind of a glitch.’
A couple of frustrating phone calls reassured both of them that no phone line or electricity service was about to be disconnected. Everything was in order. The bills had apparently been paid by magic.
No, Annabelle understood finally. It had taken her way longer than it should have done.
Not by magic. By Dylan.
It didn’t click until she and Duncan arrived at Dylan’s garage to pick up the car.
‘So how much will it be?’ she made herself ask brightly, dreading the answer.
‘Four hundred and ninety-five dollars,’ the head mechanic said, then gave her a leering stare. ‘Isn’t your doctor boyfriend going to pick up the tab for you this time?’
‘What did you expect me to say?’ Annabelle asked Dylan angrily, an hour later.
‘Not much. A small thank-you, maybe.’ He looked wary, a little distant, and he was watching her carefully.
He had only arrived at her place a minute ago—with another huge assortment of take-away containers, even though she had already told him she would cook—and she’d launched into her angry interrogation straight away, while Duncan was still safely running around in the back garden.
Had Dylan put those bills of Mum’s on his own card?
Yes.
And was he intending to pick up all or part of the tab at her garage, as he’d apparently done before?
Yes to that, too.
Why?
That was obvious, wasn’t it?
She paced the kitchen, got distracted for a moment by the sight of him unpacking the twelve…no, fourteen…plastic containers, all of them steaming with hot food, and demanded, ‘What am I supposed to do with all that?’
‘Eat the dishes we fancy tonight, and freeze the rest.’
‘No. You can take it home. I hate this. Why have you started doing this?’
‘What’s “this”?’
‘You know!’
‘Helping—’
‘No! You were the one who made me see what a horrible, mercenary kind of transaction was going on between Alex and me, and now you’re doing the same thing.’
‘Annabelle—’
‘I’m not your mistress, Dylan. The garage man made it quite clear he thought you were paying for favours received. And I’m not your charity case. I don’t want to need you. I just want…’
To want you. She didn’t quite dare to say it, since the wanting was so strong.
‘You don’t have to pay for me, or find ways to elevate my lifestyle to your level,’ she went on. ‘If my lifestyle isn’t good enough for you, then I’m not good enough for you. And if any part of what’s going on here is because you feel sorry for me, you can get out of my house right now.’
‘Since none of that applies, I’ll stay put,’ he answered lightly.
The lightness angered her further. He wasn’t taking this seriously. He wasn’t taking her seriously! Maybe the wanting was only this strong on her side.
‘Don’t belittle my feelings,’ she said. ‘This is important.’
‘I’m not belittling your feelings. I’m belittling what I did. I paid a few bills for your mother, and set up an arrangement at my garage.’
‘Yes, Alex was very willing to take on my family and financial obligations, too. I was happy about that until I realised—until you made me see—what he expected in return—a porcelain wife with a saintly aura so extreme it could be permanently damaged, in his eyes, by your outrageous behaviour at our wedding.’
‘Hey!’ Dylan growled. ‘You know I never meant that comment of mine to carry the way it did! Haven’t we dealt with that? It’s behind us. And as for comparing me with Alex, saintliness is the last thing on my mind when I think of you, Annabelle.’
She ignored the suggestive, caressing lilt in his voice and stood her ground. ‘I’m not going to be kept. Or helped. I don’t want to be dependent on the man I’m…’ She hesitated, and searched for the right word. ‘The man I’m sleeping with.’
‘What if I’m not prepared to build a relationship on those terms?’ he shot back at her immediately. ‘What if I believe that there’s always give and take? That you can’t even have a casual fling without need and support going both ways? And anyway, as far as I’m concerned, this isn’t—’
She ploughed over him. ‘It’s not going both ways, the way you’ve engineered it. It can’t go both ways. I’ve got nothing to give.’
He ignored her.
‘I’m not backing down on this, Annabelle. What you’re saying is impractical and artificial. You’re the one dealing in transactions.’
‘Am I? If that’s true, then I guess it’s over. It is over, Dylan. It has to be.’
She could hardly believe she’d said it. The words had flashed out of her mouth like a knife blade flashing out of its sheath. As soon as they’d been spoken, they settled into place as if they were puzzle pieces. They fitted. She didn’t particularly want them to, but they did.
‘It has to be,’ she repeated tightly.
She had started this too soon. She had too many issues trailing in her wake. Feelings, obligations, questions. It was very nice to have a man like Dylan in her life—a man who set her on fire, and bossed her around a little bit, with a wicked gleam in his eyes. But she wasn’t ready, and she desperately didn’t want to fall into the same pattern she’d had with Alex. She didn’t trust Dylan’s confidence on the issue, didn’t trust his belief that he was too different from the senior surgeon to let it happen.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ Dylan crossed the kitchen in three strides, and pulled her into his arms. His confidence didn’t appear to flag.
And maybe he was right to be confident, because she didn’t fight him off, just looked helplessly up into his face, melting at his touch the way she always did.
‘You don’t mean this,’ he said.
‘I—I do, actually.’
‘What, you’re turning it off, just like that? One minute we’re on fire for each other…’ He gave her a graphic verbal sketch about exactly what this had meant to them over the past ten days. Secret heat in the way they looked at each other. An almost painful anticipation about being together. Feverish couplings in her bedroom…and other places. ‘The next minute,’ he went on, ‘you’re telling me you’ve switched off the current. I don’t believe it. You still feel it. You do!’
The way he was touching her, and the way she responded, proved his point, but she at last managed to flatten her hand against his chest and push him away. At the same time, Annabelle had to bite on her lower lip to stop herself from letting her mouth drift open to receive his kiss.
‘That’s not the thing that counts for me,’ she said. ‘I just don’t like…the other places where this is going. You shouldn’t have paid those bills, or made the arrangement with your mechanic. Not without asking.’
‘If I’d asked, would you have let me?’
‘No.’
‘There you are!’
‘No! Tricking me into accepting help is worse. I can’t explain why this is so important. I’m obviously not explaining. Not well enough. But it is.’
He tried to argue some more, but she resisted. It was painful. Almost impossible. But she managed it, and finally she saw an angry acceptance cloud his eyes.
‘You’re almost as stubborn as Alex, do you know that?’ he muttered.
‘Good! It’s right to be stubborn sometimes.’
He controlled a sigh. ‘I’d better go, then, hadn’t I?’
‘Yes, I—I think so. Please, take…’ Her gesture towards the hot containers on the counter-top died in the face of his laughter.
‘Some of the food?’ he finished for her. ‘Hell, don’t be so petty, Annabelle! There’s a big picture out there, you know. You’re not seeing it, and I can’t force you to. So let’s leave it at that. I’ll see you, OK? Sorry we didn’t get a little further than this.’
She mumbled some inept agreement and followed him to her front door. Then Duncan called out for her and she hurried out to the garden, wondering if there was any way she and Dylan could have handled this without making such a mess of it.