“And I’ll be in charge of keeping you from doing something stupid,” Adam said. “I know you’re furious. We all are. But right now you need to let Rafe and Ian see what they can dig up, and be there for Grace and Mason. Because going after the bastard and his family now, without any intel or a plan, will likely only raise questions we don’t want the Bentleys asking about Grace or a baby they might not know anything about otherwise.”

Dylan appreciated the support of his brothers—it was why he’d called them together, because they’d always worked best as a team. And yet, even though he knew he shouldn’t head to D.C. and flatten all three of the Bentleys, he hated having to wait, hated having to be patient until they had more information. He had always been able to change what needed to be changed in his life, to fix what needed to be fixed. Sure, he was sometimes frustrated, or angry on his family’s behalf for things that had happened to them, but he also knew that whenever they needed help, they’d ask for it because they knew he would always be there for them.

Tonight was the first time Dylan had ever really struggled with the horrible futility of knowing that he couldn’t just make the darkness in Grace’s past go away.

“Since we can all see that Grace and Mason are already yours,” Ian told him, “that means they’re ours, too. So if her ex or his family try anything, you can count on all of us to take them down.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Grace had spent the last thirty-six hours thinking. Mulling. Dissecting.

And wanting. Always wanting.

Saturday night, she’d told Dylan more than she’d ever told anyone else about her past…and then she’d gone a little crazy in his arms. The best kind of crazy, she thought as she pulled into the parking lot of his boathouse. But crazy nonetheless. She’d hoped to have a firm handle on everything by now, but the truth was that she was still going around and around in her mind.

She’d intended for the night to be nothing more than friends visiting an aquarium. But there was no point in trying to deny how good—or how natural—it had been to make out with Dylan on her couch, so she wouldn’t bother with that nonsense. She also wouldn’t try to tell herself that she hadn’t wanted more of his big, work-roughened hands on her. Not when she had wanted much more. But he hadn’t given her what she was all but begging for, hadn’t pushed her too far. Instead, he’d stopped and gone home completely unfulfilled.

Dylan had promised that they would go slow. Given his behavior on Saturday night, it looked as though he meant it. Which was why all her thinking, all her wanting, had her circling back again and again to the same place: If they truly could keep to slow while she also kept her eyes wide open this time, then maybe it would be okay to spend a few sexy hours here and there with him.

Attraction, orgasms—they were perfectly natural. And when they were with Dylan, they were perfectly perfect, too.

In any case, it wasn’t as if making out with him meant they were getting married. A few kisses, a few incredible orgasms, didn’t mean forever. Normal people kissed, touched each other. And the truth was that she was tired of fighting her own demons all the time, tired of taking every step with caution, tired of feeling she was going to have to keep paying forever for her mistake with Richard.

Just for a little while, while she and Dylan were working together on this magazine story, couldn’t she live a little? Have some fun, feel some pleasure like any other normal woman would let herself feel with a sexy man like him?

She’d been stunned by the way he had shifted from the gentle man he always was during the day with her and Mason to a hungry, dominant lover Saturday night. Stunned in the best possible way, she thought, as a little shiver rippled over her at the still-potent memory of the heat in his eyes, the desperation in his hands, when he’d torn through her lingerie. No one had ever ripped away her bra, her panties, as if he couldn’t wait another second to have her bare beneath him. He’d asked her—told her—what he wanted her to do, where to put her hands, even when to come for him…and it had been the greatest thrill of her life not only to do it all, but also to wait breathlessly for his next sensual command.

As she got out of her car, she took a deep breath of the salty-sweet sea air. It was time to make the shift from personal to professional, at least for a few hours. Coming back to his boathouse for their second interview was important not only so that she could ask him her follow-up questions, but also so that she could make sure she described the look and feel of his workspace properly.

Of course, that was right when she rounded the corner from the parking lot…and saw Dylan bent over sanding the side of the boat in the middle of his workshop, shirtless, his skin gleaming with sweat, his muscles rippling. Oh Lord.

Oh Lord.

She wanted his mouth, his hands, his body on hers again. Wanted to come apart for him, beneath him, against him, again and again. Wanted to discover just how much more pleasure there was to be had in his arms.

She took another deep breath, and then one more for good measure. Business. She needed to stay on track with her story.

But, as she let the last slightly ragged breath go, she knew she was going to have to ride out a few more seconds of being a very attracted woman first.

Grace had read several books on boat building to make sure that she understood the basics, but watching Dylan painstakingly sand a section by hand, then run his other hand over the smooth wood before he moved on to the next plank, almost felt like watching a man with his lover. Every boat he made, she sensed, meant a great deal to him. Who was this one for? What man or woman would be lucky enough to sail away on a boat that had been so painstakingly created?

As a writer, Grace saw the world through words first. But as she watched him work, she could see what a fascinating documentary someone could make here with Dylan. Both the visual story of the creation of a boat from start to finish and an in-depth look into the mind of the man who could turn planks of wood into magic.

Of course, she could easily guess that he would never allow anyone to film him. Not because he was hiding anything. It was simply that for all that he’d opened his work and his family to her, Dylan was a naturally private man.

It was why sailing suited him so well. He didn’t need accolades. Didn’t need to be seen by anyone as the best. He simply wanted to be free to build boats. Free to race them. Free to sail off in one to explore whatever corner of the world interested him. And she didn’t blame him for wanting to live his life according to his own rules when she wanted that very same thing—to live the life of her dreams without always looking in the shadows, without always worrying about being hurt.