Going Hard (Single Ladies' Travel Agency Book 2) Read online

  “Fair enough.”

  A moment of silence passes between us before either of us speaks again.

  “I don’t know much about fashion, but I like your clothes,” he adds, his voice a little soft, a little smooth. “If I had to pick, I’d definitely give you the title of Best-Dressed Woman in Rome.”

  I look down at my outfit. “This old thing?” I say, all too aware of how much boob is showing.

  “Yes, that old thing,” he nods. “You make the locals pale in comparison to your beauty.”

  I allow myself a little smile. “Well, you’re being awfully complimentary, Pickle. Are you trying to make up for…” I stop myself yet again. Damn it, Lucy. The matter is supposed to be officially closed.

  He looks confused again, like he has no idea what I’m talking about. I guess I should be grateful for his conveniently forgetful male brain. At least he’s not as neurotic as I am.

  “Sorry,” I mutter. “I was about to say something stupid.” That’s it. From this moment on I’m going to follow Katherine’s advice. I won’t judge Dylan, or anyone else, by their past. Only by their present and future. At least I’ll try.

  “So you said you’re working in Rome?” I ask. “What can you tell me about that?”

  “Ah. Well, long story. I guess you don’t know that I started up my own firm a few years back, in New York City.”

  “New York?” my voice chokes with shock. There may be a little sadness in there, too. “I had no idea you’d moved so…far away. When did that happen?”

  He pulls his eyes away and stares off into space, like he’s recalling something from the distant past. “I planned on staying around L.A. back in the day, for grad school,” he says, “but things didn’t go as I’d hoped, so I took off.” He turns back to me and gives me the strangest look, as if I was somehow involved in his decision to leave. Okay, now I’m the confused one. “I moved as far away as I could without leaving the country,” he continues. “Anyhow, getting my own firm up and running is something I’ve worked on for years. I’ve got fifty employees and counting working for Emerson Design.”

  “Wow. So you can afford to pay that many people?” Some part of my chest swells with pride and admiration. “Good for you.”

  “Thanks.” He’s smiling, looking so cute. Almost embarrassed, like he doesn’t want to boast about what an incredible achievement it is. “Anyhow, I’m here on a sort of work sabbatical, getting together with some Italian firms to study integrating classical design into modern buildings. I want to bring elements of Italian architecture back to New York. Everything’s gotten so damned big and modern, I miss the days when buildings were hard stone, strong and durable.”

  “I do too,” I tell him. Again, my eyes move about, this time looking up at the buildings surrounding us. None of them is more than four storeys high, and I like it. We could just as easily be sitting in the middle of a medieval village as the centre of a bustling metropolis. “Maybe that’s why this place feels so good to me. There’s none of the new style of architecture. Rome has staying power. It’s so old, but somehow it’s just right.”

  “Right, exactly,” says Dylan. His features are growing animated, like he’s excited to get to talk about his work. He leans in, and so do I. It’s possible that I’m enjoying this a little too much. Suddenly I feel close to him emotionally as well as physically. That can’t be good. “Don’t you wish you could wake up every morning in a place that looks like Trastevere?” he asks, looking around at the buildings that surround us. “Vines dripping down the walls, beautiful open windows, the smell of delicious food cooking?”

  “Totally,” I say, allowing myself to be temporarily taken in by his fantasy.

  “That’s what I want to create. A place to live that doesn’t feel oppressive or closed in. I want to live in a quiet, beautiful place that feels as relaxing as an Italian villa.”

  My heart’s beating hard. What he just described is what I want, too. Well, maybe not in New York. But the idea of a peaceful oasis is perfection. It’s how everyone should live. Stress-free, beautiful surroundings.

  “I get it,” I say, staring into his eyes. “I understand. I suppose that’s why I love the style here, the clothes, the everything. It’s so laid back but sort of…I don’t know, dreamy.”

  “Loose,” he replies, leaning even closer. His blue eyes are penetrating me and pulling me in at once. Dangerous man alert. “I’ve really missed you, you know.”

  Oh damn. Even more dangerous man.

  Like a lever’s been pulled I draw myself backwards, smashing into the back of the chair as a sharp wave of pleasure passes over me. This is a little too good, too pleasant. Too near perfection. Which means that it can’t be good for me. Nope, I can’t let myself go back to that place. I’m not getting my heart hurt by him again. He seems different now, more grown up, more responsible. But so am I, and that means I’ve learned from my past mistakes. I know not to make them again, no matter how tempting it might be.

  I’m here for me. For pleasure. For a vacation, alone and untethered to past hurts.

  “I’ve missed you too,” I say quietly. But I don’t expand on the thought. I can’t. Because then he’d know how much I once cared for him.

  We sit in silence for a moment before Dylan speaks up again. “Do you remember the time when we were in high school and we all went down to that ravine? The one that Jake Billings fell into?”

  Lifting my water glass to my mouth, I laugh. “Jeez, I’d almost forgotten. We were teenagers then,” I say, taking a sip. I study his face. “I didn’t realize you even knew I was there. There must have been fifteen of us.”

  “Oh, I knew. I always knew when you were around.”

  “You did?”

  Oh, God. He’s staring into me now with that same hungry look I saw in his apartment. The look that makes me want to pull my clothes off and tell him to take me in any way that he wants. “Always,” he says, his voice deepening. “I had the biggest crush on you. I can’t believe you didn’t know that. The only reason I never acted on it until…that night…was because you seemed so reserved. Aloof, even. I gave up on you and went out with girls I didn’t like that much.”

  “I had a crush on you for a long time, too,” I lie. Crush, ha. I was madly in love with you like only a teenage girl can be. I had hopes and dreams pinned on you. I wanted you. I’d saved my virginity for you.

  As the memory of the pain hits me again, I feel myself tensing up, my fingers curling into fists. I don’t want to revisit heartbreak when we’re having such a nice time.

  Maybe we should quit while we’re ahead.

  “Listen, I’m pretty tired,” I tell him. “Do you think we could maybe settle up and head back?”

  He nods, drawing his body away as though to signal that it’s okay, he’s not going to make a move. He throws a hand up and gestures for the bill. “I’ve got this,” he tells me.

  “Oh, no,” I reply, inadvertently reaching across the table to stop him. I don’t want to be in debt to Dylan Emerson.

  “Please,” he says, reaching a hand out abruptly to land on my own. This is the first time he’s touched me, if you don’t count his slamming into me at the coffee shop or our handshake. Shocks drive through me, sending a mad, wonderful pulse to my core, reminding me what effect this man has on my very excited body. “Lucy, let me pay,” he says. His voice is as strained as mine feels.

  “Okay,” I reply reluctantly. I feel like a turtle retreating into its hard shell, fear and excitement flooding through my veins like alcohol. I want him so badly, but I’m so damned frightened of what it means.

  He strokes a thumb along my skin before pulling his hand away, as though he’s reluctant to let me go. “Listen, I want to see you again,” he murmurs. His voice has gone very deep, very low, its masculinity swirling like smoke around my mind. If I didn’t know better I’d say that he was making a demand. “I want to spend time with you, Lucy.”

  I shake my head, unwilling to negotiate with emotiona
l terrorists who take my heart hostage and don’t give it back. “I don’t think…” I begin.

  “So don’t think,” he tells me. His voice is all but a growl. My eyes meet his, and he looks so sexy that I want to throw caution to the wind and give in. I want to take him back to my place and breeze my hands over his muscles, straddle him, dominate him, claim him for myself, just for one night.

  I want that night I lost so long ago.

  “You’re telling me not to think?” I ask. “All I ever do is think. It’s my downfall. It’s why…it’s why I’m so fucked up, Dylan.”

  “You’re not fucked up,” he says with a crooked smile, the dimple in his right cheek springing to life. “You’re perfect, Loose. The only thing that would make you more perfect is if you tell me you’ll spend some time with me here, in Rome.”

  “I’ll spend some time with you,” I say. His smile is now evening out confidently, his teeth making an appearance.

  “Excellent,” he says. “Was that so hard?”

  I swallow hard. “I mean I’ll spend time with you as a friend.”

  Bye-bye, smile. You were nice while you lasted.

  Still, he keeps his chin up. Tearing his eyes away, he says, “Well, that’s better than nothing. As a friend then. Tomorrow after I’ve finished working, let me take you out and show you the sights. By then you’ll have gotten some rest, and we can go for a good long walk.”

  “Sounds good.” A wander through the streets would be okay. As long as he doesn’t touch me again. If he puts his hands on me, I’ll lose my mind and my resolve. All resistance will melt away, and I’ll lick him, or kiss him, or bite him. Or all three at once.

  They say that every woman has one man in her life that she just can’t resist. The bad boy who’s just too attractive to give up. The problem is, I’m beginning to think Dylan isn’t bad.

  I’m not so sure he ever was.

  Eleven

  Dylan

  Lucy Horner just shut me down like an undesirable lightbulb.

  Or, what’s worse, an undesirable man.

  I thought we were making strides. She seemed to be relaxing, laughing, smiling like in the old days. I guess I was a little foolish to assume that it meant that we might be able to pick up where we left off. We’re not there yet. I’m not sure we’ll ever be, even if we spend the next few weeks together.

  But the thing is, I’m there. I’ve been there since I first set eyes on her a few hours ago. I want her so badly that my tongue is tingling, begging me to strip her down to nothing, bury my face between her thighs and draw its tip over her clit.

  I feel like no time has passed since that night. I’m still the guy who ran off to get that blanket. Excited, optimistic, ready to finally be with the girl I’ve wanted for so long.

  But she’s not ready. I’m not sure she’ll ever be.

  I’m not a total asshole. I’m not going to disrespect the wishes of a woman I hold in such high esteem by making a move on her, when clearly she doesn’t want me. If she’s willing to spend time with me as friends, so be it. At least she hasn’t run away this time. We’re talking to each other like adults, and that’s more than I’ve gotten from her in a long time.

  After I’ve settled up, I walk her back towards our building. She’s silent all the way there, and so am I.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” I say after a time.

  She looks sideways at me, that sly expression in her eyes that tells me there’s a lot going on in that head of hers. “I’m not thinking anything,” she insists.

  “Yes, you are. You know how I can tell?”

  “How?”

  “Because you’re breathing, Loose. You were always thinking, always over-analyzing everything. I remember that well about you. You even said it yourself.”

  She laughs. “Okay, fine. If you insist, I was just thinking it’s pretty weird how things turn out, isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?” I ask her as we reach the front gate. When I’ve unlocked it, we both walk into the cobblestone corridor that leads towards the stairwell.

  “I never thought I’d see you again,” she replies. “And I certainly never expected to have dinner with you in an Italian restaurant—in Italy.”

  “Me neither,” I tell her, “but I’m really damned glad that fate made it happen.”

  At the stairs I have a choice: follow her to the right or go up to the left, to my place. I know exactly what I need to do; I just don’t want to do it. So I stop at the base of the stairs and turn her way, delaying the inevitable. “Listen, you know where to find me if you want me, need me, want to talk,” I tell her. I’m not smiling anymore. I’m dead serious, and a little sad. “Thanks for coming out to dinner.”

  “Thank you,” she says, throwing me a quick, laboured grin. But her eyes contradict her upturned lips; they’re questioning, like she wants to understand something. Thing is, I can’t read her mind, damn it. I can’t know what she wants from me unless she says it.

  I wish she’d open up to me, say something. Anything.

  “Dylan, the thing is, I…” she says in a voice so low it’s nearly a whisper.

  “Yes?”

  She looks down at her hands, which are fiddling with the keys twisted among her fingers. “Nothing. I’ll see you around. Good night.”

  As she heads up the stairs, I watch her for a few seconds. She still has no real idea how sexy she is, or how much I want her. If she knew, there was no way that she’d be so cruel as to deny me her presence tonight.

  “Good night, Loose,” I whisper as she disappears around the corner.

  Twelve

  Lucy

  After I’ve hiked up the stairs and made my way inside my apartment, I run over to the other side of the living room to shut the curtains before Dylan gets a chance to turn his light on across the courtyard. I need to cut myself off from any evidence of that too-gorgeous man before I get even more hooked on whatever it is that he’s selling. I need to distance myself, need to keep myself from falling into the abyss again.

  How is it that a guy who was the captain of the college football team—the sexy, smart, impossibly handsome blond god who dominated the halls and every girl’s heart in high school and university—has actually managed to get even hotter over the years? More baffling still, how the fuck is he still single?

  It’s killing me to resist him. I want to open the curtains and yell across that I was wrong to tell him I just wanted to be friends. I want to shout, “Dylan! I made a mistake! Now get over here and take off your damn clothes!”

  I want to spend the next four weeks in Rome walking the streets during the day, taking in the sights, and coming home at night to make love with him in a creaky old brass-framed bed until we can’t even walk anymore. I want him to kiss me on the Spanish Steps, by the Trevi Fountain, under the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. I want him to whisper lascivious words to me in St. Peter’s, to secretly push his hand up my skirt under the table of a five-star restaurant. I want all the things we never had.

  But more than anything, I want to feel again. I want to let my heart open just a little and see what’s in there.

  The thing is, I do feel. I feel for myself, I feel for him. He’s still all the things I loved back in the days before he broke my heart. Only now he’s better, wiser.

  Of course, so am I.

  Wise enough to know that maybe it’s better like this. A good male friend is a rare find, and maybe it’s smart to keep him at arm’s length.

  I’m pondering the entire stupid dilemma when a gentle knock sounds at my door. If it’s Dylan, I have no idea how I’ll resist grabbing him by the waist of his shorts and dragging him into the apartment so I can have my way with him. My resistance is seriously compromised.

  But I have to resist. I have to control myself. I can’t fall hard all over again, or I’ll end up crashing into the ground and shattering into a million pieces.

  When I pull the door open, I’m already saying, “Listen, Dylan,” but when my eyes find
my visitor’s, I slam my mouth shut. Oh, my. It’s Giancarlo, the handsome young man from downstairs.

  Shit. I told him I’d go on a date with him.

  Shit. I’m not sure I want to anymore.

  “Mi scusi,” he says. The words flit to my ears like music in the air. “I don’t mean to disturb, bella, but this message was left for you.” He hands me a slip of paper, which I grasp in a tense fist.

  “Thank you—I mean grazie,” I reply, smiling at him, relieved. Relieved that instead of a man whose attractiveness scares me half to death, I’m looking at a man whose attractiveness just makes me slightly horny. Harmless Giancarlo is almost a breath of fresh air after an evening spent resisting Dylan’s charms.

  “Okay, good night,” I add, ready to seal myself off from humanity. I don’t feel like acknowledging the date that may never happen. I just want to forget that men exist, for a little while at least.

  “Bella Lucia,” Giancarlo says before I have a chance to close the door. Those were Dylan’s words earlier, too. He lays his palms on the frame and leans towards me, those blue eyes of his narrowing as he looks me up and down. “It turns out that I don’t have to work this evening. Would you like to have a drink with me?”

  “Tonight?” I reply, anxiety forcing my brow into a state of wrinkled tension. Right now I’m way too screwed up to think about a drink with this guy. “I…I can’t, not tonight.”

  I’m about to say, “or ever” when it occurs to me that I’m being stupid. Why shouldn’t I, after all? “I’m sorry, it’s just that I’m really tired,” I add sheepishly. “But maybe another evening soon?”

  He looks like a dismayed puppy dog. “Okay then,” he replies. “But soon, si?”

  He’s smiling at me, his curly black hair dipping over one blue eye. This guy is like a walking sex toy designed for the frivolous pleasure of randy single chicks. I could make a killing if I learned how to produce Giancarlo clones for the masses.