Page 22 of Dirty Like Dylan

I followed them outside, onto the giant deck that wrapped around the back of the house. We were above the ground, maybe a dozen feet. One of those swimming pools that looked like a giant rectangular hot tub, used for swimming laps in place, was sunk right into the wooden deck. Cushy lounge furniture was arranged around the pool and the outdoor fireplace.

So make that four fireplaces.

Yeah. It would be pretty awesome to be rich.

Then I looked up… and for the first time, I actually saw the view.

As I attempted to start to process it, my jaw dropped, the same way it had at the sight of Dylan’s naked abs.

It was like I’d just stepped into the middle of a photo spread in National Geographic.

The house looked out through an opening in the trees, over a rocky point that jetted out into the water. The water lapped at the rocks, birds chirped, a heron floated on the water. And then… nothing but water and the humps of islands, misty in the distance. And the mainland, erupting in hazy mountainous splendor, all blue-gray and majestic along the horizon.

It was a nature-lover’s porn.

And I started to get it.

I leaned up against the deck railing, gazing out, breathing in the fresh coastal air. Right here… this was deep, profound, resonant beauty.

I glanced over at Dylan. He was standing a few feet away, watching me.

Behind him, Ashley had stepped out onto the deck, beer in hand, and stood half-listening as Susanna elucidated about the size of the property and the seventeen types of trees that could be found on it. If she’d just stop talking, it would really improve things. But even so…

This was why Dylan lived here? For this feeling…?

I looked out again, over the water, and I could feel it. Like you were standing on the edge of the world, and the rules no longer applied to you.

It was a sensation akin to total freedom.

I’d experienced this same feeling a few times in my life; always on my travels. I understood the pull and the power of it. And I understood, deeply, the lure to feel it again.

The need to pursue it, across the globe and back if you had to… again and again.

“You probably think I’m crazy,” Dylan said. He spoke in a low voice that only I could hear, and when I looked at him, I found he’d shifted closer to me. His green-gold eyes locked on mine. “Just another crazy-rich rock star with too much money to burn while people go hungry elsewhere in the world?” He leaned on the rail and looked out over the water.

“People go hungry right here, where you live,” I informed him.

“And believe me, I do what I can to change that.” He glanced at me again. “And maybe I am crazy. But there’s a method in my madness.”

A method?

He was saying… there was a purpose in all of this? Beyond just living large?

“Hey boss, I’m heading out.”

I turned at the sound of a man’s voice, to find Connor stepping out onto the deck.

“Gonna catch the six o’clock…” he said. Then he saw me and lifted his chin in my direction with a cute, white-toothed grin. “Amber Paige Malone. How’d you slip past me?”

I shrugged, but I smiled, too. It was kinda nice to see a friendly face. In the brief time it had taken for him to let me into the Underlayer shoot and then escort me out of it, I’d come to like Connor the security biker, grudgingly. “What can I say? You let your guard down, Con.”

He raised an eyebrow at Dylan. “Should I pat her down?” Then he looked me over, but he wasn’t serious.

At least, I was pretty sure he wasn’t.

“You could try,” Dylan said, seemingly amused as they both stared at me.

I glanced at Ashley, suddenly feeling his eyes on me. Next to him, Susanna had stopped talking, and she was staring at me, too.