“Oh, yeah, A.k.a. Sexy as hell. You never see it, but your ass turns heads. In those jeans, it’s practically given me whiplash. Don’t even get me started on your freckles.”
“You can’t see them. I use concealer.”
“And I like you.”
The wooing didn’t surprise her. This was Dent Carter, after all. But that declaration stunned her, and, seeing her reaction, he laughed lightly.
“Shocks the hell out of me, too. I didn’t expect to like you, because you’re a Lyston. But…” He paused as his gaze roved over her face, taking in the features of her face one at a time. “You’re okay,” he said in a low, throaty voice.
For only a moment, she was susceptible to those eyes, his words, his face, which was never far from her mind and hadn’t been for years. Then she drew herself together and remembered why they were engaged in this conversation.
“You’re just talking pretty to get me into bed.”
“Well, sure.” He flashed his dirtiest grin, then sobered. “But I also happen to mean everything I said. I’m saying it more for your good than mine, and I rarely do anything unselfishly.”
Maybe it was that admission that kept her there, still and expectant, when she should have moved away. But she didn’t. So he put his arms around her and drew her close, and, oh my God, it felt good.
It felt even better when he slid his hands down over her bottom and applied enough pressure to mold her to him. The way their bodies meshed made her knees weak.
“This is purely unselfish on your part?” she murmured.
Laughing softly, he nuzzled her ear. “Not this, no. Feel how well we fit? Damn. No way in hell could you be a letdown.”
He felt it immediately. She’d been molding herself to him, making adjustments that put his control in jeopardy.
And in the next instant she went as rigid as a flagpole. Her hands pushed against his chest to break the embrace, and when she backed away, her eyes were as wide as saucers.
“What did you say?” she asked in a hoarse voice.
Dent couldn’t account for her sudden withdrawal, or for the way she was looking at him. At a loss, he held his arms out to his sides. “What?”
“You said… you said… I couldn’t be a letdown. That’s what you said. Specifically. A letdown. Why did you use that particular word?”
“Because that’s the word you used earlier today. I was merely repeating—”
“No, wait!” She pressed the heels of her hands to her temples as though trying to squeeze out a thought. Or perhaps to keep an unwelcome one inside, and the possibility of that made him slightly queasy.
“Bellamy…” He took a step toward her, but she stuck out her hand to halt him.
“You used that word because Susan used it.” Her eyes were on him, but they were seeing something else, someone else. “She said it at the barbecue. At the boathouse. During your argument.”
He hadn’t remembered the exact terminology Susan had used, but the memory that had just worked itself free of Bellamy’s subconscious was a bad one, one that he’d hoped she would never regain. His heartbeat spiked, but he played it calmly and coolly, played it dumb. “I don’t remember what she said.”
“Yes you do!” she cried shrilly. “You remember. That’s why you refused to talk about it night before last at your apartment. I knew you were holding something back.” She covered her mouth with her hands and closed her eyes. “I remember. Oh God, I remember now what you wanted to keep from me.”
Her breaths started coming in harsh gasps. “You and Susan were in the throes of your argument. You were trying to placate her, to kiss and make up, but Susan was furious. She said… she said that if you wanted to fuck a Lyston girl, you could go fuck… me.” She sucked in a breath so hard she winced with the pain of it. “Then she said, ‘Of course since you’ve had me, Bellamy will be a huge letdown.’”
She’d used that word today, so for all these years it must have been there in the back of her mind just waiting to be triggered. He cursed himself for being the one to do it. He hoped to heaven her recollection would stop there. “Who gives a damn what Susan said?”
But Bellamy seemed not to hear him. She was back at the boathouse, listening to her sister mocking her. “After saying that, she laughed. She smiled that smile that Steven remembers and described to us so well. That triumphant smile. That’s when you left her.”
She focused on him, seeking verification. Reluctantly, he nodded. “I couldn’t stand the sight of her for one second longer. I wheeled my motorcycle around and was about to ride off. That’s when I spotted you crouching there in the bushes. I knew you must have overheard what she’d said, and my gut sank. She always treated you like dirt. And you were—”
“Pathetic.”
“I wasn’t going to say that, but you were an easy target for her ridicule. It was an awful thing for her to say, in any case. But it was especially mean because she knew you were there and would overhear it.”
“Yes, I’m sure she got double pleasure out of taunting you and humiliating me.”