Page 176 of Dirty Like Dylan

The happiness faded from Dylan’s face a bit. I could see it in his eyes, how the mention of Ashley bothered him.

Ashley taking off didn’t sit well with either of us.

“Of course he does,” he said.

“Oh.” I felt my eyes fill with tears again, but I quickly blinked them back.

“He cares about you,” Dylan said, his voice low and husky. “He would’ve loved you. If you…”

“If I let him,” I finished, my voice soft and parched. And I knew he was right. “But… I just can’t, Dylan. If that’s what you want… believe me, I understand.” I was trying to, at least. “You knew him long before you met me. You guys have tons of history, memories. You have this amazing, beautiful bond. If you want him in your life that way… with a woman, and the two of you… I understand. It just can’t be me.” The tears had run over again, and I swiped them from my cheeks. God, it had been such an emotional night. “That’s not an ultimatum. I’m just telling you… That’s how I feel. I just… I can’t love Ashley. Not the way I would have to, to live like that. It’s hard enough, the whole idea of…” I stopped short before saying it.

“The idea of loving me,” he finished for me.

“I’m sorry. This is all knew for me. I know I’m bad at love. But… I know how I feel. I know how I feel about you, and about him. I care about him. A lot. I think he’s an amazing person. I really do. He’s complicated but so loyal to you, and he has a big heart beneath all the angry, rough edges. But I just don’t love him like that. It kinda kills me that I don’t. But I don’t. And if you need a woman who does, who can make room for him that way…”

“I need you,” Dylan said, pulling me against him, his green eyes delving deep into mine. “I need you, Amber.”

I sighed with relief, but I did it quietly. I didn’t want to be so happy for myself when it meant it was hurting someone I cared about. “What about Ashley?”

“You know I love Ash,” he said. “But I’m never gonna love him the way he wanted me to. There’s nothing I can do about that.”

It hurt; I knew that. I could hear it in his voice.

“That must be so fucking hard.” I cupped his beautiful face in my hands. “To know that he’s hurt and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Yeah. I hate it. But keeping him around, doing what we were doing, that’s only gonna hurt him more. I was hurting him all along, Amber. I just didn’t realize it until last night.” He shrugged. “I guess I was a little slow on that.”

“You really didn’t know he was in love with you until last night?”

“No.”

“Wow.” I tried to smile a bit. “You are slow.”

He looked like he felt really fucking bad about it, and I wrapped myself tighter around him.

“Sorry. Too early to make jokes?”

“I’m always good for jokes, Amber,” he said. “I just can’t laugh about this.”

“Okay. How about we make each other a promise, then?” I gazed at him, so full of hope, and brushed my fingers over his full lips. “To help each other through this relationship thing. I’m not even asking for forever, and I’m not promising it. I just know I want to see you onstage rocking out in your kilt and I want to wake up next to you every morning and I want to see the world with you. And I promise to give you all the space you need in your friendship with Ashley. You’ll give me the space I need to do my photography. I’ll try like hell not to scratch out all your groupies’ eyes on the road. And you’ll keep me happy by doing that thing where you screw me with your big dick until my eyes roll back in my head and I forget my name. Deal?”

“Deal,” he said, his eyes darkening as his hands slid over my ass. He gripped me tight and ground me against his stiff cock. “But do you think you can be satisfied with one man, now that you’ve had two?”

He was teasing me, taunting as he pressed his hard-on against me… his incredibly large hard-on… But I knew there was a touch of fear behind the words.

“If that man is you,” I said, “totally fucking yes.”

Then I kissed him, with all the love I already felt for him… and all the potential of the love that I knew we could share.

Maybe I wasn’t asking for or promising forever, but I so fucking wanted it.

With him.

“Besides,” I told him, “you’re so freakin’ tall, you’ve got incredible reach. You can hit all the important places at the same time, and I can just close my eyes and imagine there are like three of you. So… we’re totally covered.”

“That’s good,” he murmured against my lips. “I wouldn’t want to miss any important places.”

“You know, there’s this one place you’ve never quite hit, at the base of my spine…”

---