Leo stopped barking for a moment to take this in and the silence was heavenly but short lived as he started in again.
“Arf, arf, ARF!”
Shaking his head, Dylan rose to his feet. Lost cause and he knew when to cut his losses, on both the girl and her dog. He turned to walk away and felt Leo clamp his teeth onto his pants leg. “You serious?” he asked.
Leo growled, not letting loose.
“Things to do, little man,” he said and headed toward Tilly, towing Leo along with him as he went. “I’ve got something of yours.”
“I’m sorry. Leo!” She bent to scoop the puppy up and he immediately stopped barking and panted happily at Tilly, licking her chin. She kept her eyes on Dylan. “You were about to explain some things to me.”
“Is that why you’re here?” he asked, hoping to divert.
“No. I’m here because . . .” She avoided looking at Penn and Ric. “Because you missed class.”
“You wanted me to drop your class.”
“Yes, but not because . . .” She hesitated. “Of a kiss.”
“I had a flight I couldn’t miss,” he said. “Would the teacher like a note?”
“Nope,” she said. “I’d like that explanation.”
Dylan sent a long “leave” look to Penn and Ric, both of whom were standing there like two middle school boys hoping for gossip. Neither of whom left. Dylan cleared his throat and jerked his head toward the door.
“The short version of the story,” Penn said to Tilly instead of leaving, “is that he acted like a dick, but he did it for you.”
Ric wrapped an arm around Penn’s neck and slapped a hand over the guy’s mouth. “Ignore us,” he said to Dylan. “Pretend we’re not even here.”
“And the long version?” Tilly asked Penn.
Penn tore Ric’s hand from his mouth. “He went into the military so you’d take your art scholarship. He did it so you’d move on and not look back. He did it so you’d have the life you dreamed of having. And he tried to not look back too. But then when he nearly got blown up and landed in the hospital at death’s door—”
Tilly gasped.
“No, it’s okay,” Penn assured her. “It was four years ago now. He lived.”
Tilly turned on Dylan. “You were hurt? And you didn’t tell me?”
Dylan opened his mouth, but Penn beat him to it. “He forced himself not to keep up with you, so we all looked you up on Facebook to see what you were up to. And you were seeing someone, so he refused to let us get in touch with you—”
“Wait.” Her mouth fell open. “You decided from a Facebook post to not to contact me?”
“Never said our boy wasn’t stubborn,” Penn said. His smile faded. “But it was really bad, Tilly. He wasn’t in a good place to make decisions, you know? In the end, we respected his wishes and bullied him back to the land of the living with the carrot of starting our own business flying for hire.”
“Okay,” Dylan said tightly. “Out.”
Tilly turned to go, but he snagged her hand. “Not you.”
“Right,” Ric said and picked up Leo before dragging Penn toward the offices. “We’ll dog sit.”
Penn twisted back to Tilly. “If you’ve got any other questions, just ask him. If after hearing his story you’re not punched in the feels and inclined to forgive him, you might want to check your pulse.”
Tilly waited until Penn and Ric were out of sight and it was just her and Dylan. She had so many emotions swirling through her, she could hardly breathe, and questions too. So many questions, but he was drenched. “Aren’t you cold?” she asked. “Do you need to change?”
He took her by the hand and tugged her along with him down the hall to an office. He shut the door and went straight to the duffel bag on the desk, pulling out a change of clothes. She expected him to excuse himself to another room. She did not expect him to begin stripping out of his clothes.
He kicked off his athletic shoes first, then his socks, which hit the floor with a soggy “smack.” He pulled off his windbreaker, which had been suctioned to his chest and back and made a very wet pop as he freed himself of it, like the nylon didn’t want to let go of him.
She kinda knew how it felt.
Before she could get annoyed at herself for the thought, he pulled his T-shirt over his head and then his hands went to his jeans.
“What do you think you’re doing?” For the record, she hadn’t looked away, but let her eyes soak up his bare chest and abs.
One hundred percent, the too skinny teenager had filled out in all the right places.
He glanced up. “I’m changing out of my wet clothes into dry ones.”
“Here?”
Instead of answering, he turned to rifle through the duffel bag and then shoved his jeans and boxers down and off, leaving him buck-ass naked.
With a shocked squeak, she covered her eyes, but when she heard his soft chuckle, she peeked out between her fingers.
“You’ve seen it all before,” he reminded her, pulling on a pair of black knit boxers before shaking out a pair of jeans.
“A long time ago!”
He looked amused as he pulled up the jeans and adjusted himself. “Nothing much has changed that I know of.”
That wasn’t true. He’d gone from boy to man, and his body reflected that. Utterly unable to stop herself, she moved toward him and ran a hand over the sleek, smooth muscles of his back as they shifted with his movements.
At her touch, he froze. Still turned away from her, he tipped his head back, eyes closed, and said her name in a low, husky, desire-filled whisper.
Swallowing hard, she watched her fingers trace a line down his spine, stopping only when the waistband of his jeans blocked her path. He’d left to give her a life, misguided and stupid as that was, not because he’d stopped feeling for her. He’d been hurt, badly . . . almost died.
“Keep doing that,” he murmured, still not moving, “and we’re going to break in my office with your bare ass on my desk and me buried deep inside you.”
She let her hand slip into the back of his jeans, loose since he hadn’t buttoned them.
“Tilly,” he said, his voice soft but the warning was clear. “Use your words. Tell me what you want or stop touching me.”
She knew what she didn’t want. She didn’t want to be warned away. She was tired of thinking. Tired of feeling . . . empty. She wanted to feel something, and the last person to make her really do that was Dylan. It felt right, and so did the handful of taut ass she squeezed.
He turned toward her, his eyes dark with desire as he caught her hands in his and drew them up and around his neck. “Say it, Tilly. I need to hear you say it.”
“I want you.”
He pressed his forehead to hers and closed his eyes. “Again.”
“I want you, Dylan. I always have.”
He sucked in a breath and his arms tightened on her. “Now?”
“Yes.”
“Here?”
“Yes.”
He lifted her up against him and set her onto his desk. Holding her gaze, he leaned past her and swept the desk clear, letting everything hit the floor.