The Dare

by Elle Kennedy

  He lays me down in the center of the mattress, carefully placing my head against the pillows. Then he stands at the foot of the bed, his hands moving to the collar of his shirt.

  “Permission to get naked?” He grins adorably.

  “Permission granted.” Man, now my voice is the one that sounds gravelly.

  I watch with hooded eyes as he strips out of his T-shirt, jeans, and boxer briefs. I never get tired of staring at him. The planes of his chest, the shadows that accentuate his muscular arms. His beautiful, broad, athlete’s physique robs me of breath. He’s perfection.

  My eyes fall to his long, thick cock and a resulting bolt of heat goes right between my legs.

  This is a first for him, too. Being completely naked in front of me. And I appreciate that he does it not because it was a difficult step for him, but because he wants me to be comfortable.

  Conor climbs onto the bed and covers me with his body. His lips find mine and we start kissing, tongues greedy and desperate, until we’re both breathing heavily. I’ve never made out with anyone while we were both naked. Conor’s dick lies heavy between my legs, slightly nudging my opening. It’d be so easy to just say yes, part my thighs a bit wider, grip him, and guide him inside.

  His tongue teases mine again and for a moment it’s all I want.

  I want to say yes.

  But.

  “I don’t think I’m…you know…there yet,” I whisper against his mouth.

  He lifts his head. Hazy arousal has darkened his eyes.

  “I mean, I want to be.”

  “Okay.” Conor rolls onto his side beside me. His dick is at full salute, and the pearly drop pooling at the tip makes my mouth water.

  Swallowing, I sit up. “There’s a big part of me that just wants to do it and get it over with, but—”

  “You don’t have to rush for me,” he says easily. “I’m not in a hurry.”

  “No?” I search his expression for any signs of annoyance.

  “No,” he promises, sitting up too. “When you’re ready, I hope it’s with me. If not, I’m content right here with the way things are. I mean that.”

  I kiss him. Because despite all his protestations to the contrary, Conor is a good guy. He’s sweet and funny and I think somehow he’s even become my best friend. My best friend with dick benefits.

  Releasing his lips, I take his cock in my hand. He’s still hard, throbbing. His entire body tenses when I wrap my fingers around him and slide my fist up, down.

  “Babe,” he breathes, and I don’t know what he intends by it—babe, stop? Babe, keep going?

  If it was the former, it quickly turns into the latter when I slide to the floor and settle on my knees in front of him. His hands brace against the bed and his head drops forward at the first swipe of my tongue along his length.

  Conor’s legs tremble while I suck him. He breathes slow and deep, as if it’s taking all his concentration.

  “Don’t stop,” he mumbles as I take him deep in my mouth. His hips start moving, gently thrusting forward. “Please don’t ever stop.”

  It’s hard to smile when my lips are wrapped tightly around him, but I’m smiling in spirit. I love doing this to him, love driving him to the edge of blissful desperation. I know when I’ve almost got him there because he groans as his hands reach for my breasts and his hips lift off the bed just a little.

  I don’t know what makes me do it, but rather than letting him finish on his stomach, I take him in my hand and stroke him until he releases on my tits. It gives me a little thrill I didn’t expect, a sharp sting of naughtiness. Once he’s stopped shuddering, I peer up at his gorgeous face and see raw lust staring back at me.

  “Fuck,” he says, winded and brushing his sweaty hair out of his eyes.

  I laugh awkwardly. “I’m just gonna get cleaned up.”

  As I’m getting up to go to the bathroom, his phone buzzes on the floor. He answers it while I’m waiting for the shower to heat up. I can’t make out exactly what he says, but he sounds upset when he hears who’s on the other end.

  “I can’t,” I think he says. “Forget it… The answer’s still no.”

  It’s Kai again, I have no doubt of that. Whatever Conor’s old friend is after, he’s not letting this go.

  And Conor’s not offering any details. After I’m out of the shower, there’s a distinct thundercloud over his mood, until he finally turns down my invitation to stay the night and heads home early.

  Goddamn Kai. I wish he’d just go away. Clearly there’s still something between those two, some terrible secret that’s eating Conor up inside. As badly as I want him to talk to me, though, I’m not going to push him.

  I just hope he finds a way to deal with it before it consumes him entirely.

  26

  Conor

  The water is freezing. Even through my wetsuit it still stings my toes if I don’t keep moving. I paddle in circles just to keep my body temp up, but it doesn’t bother me. Nothing gets to me when I’m on my board and the swells are passing beneath me. Nothing penetrates the roar of waves crashing against the shore and the seagull cries overhead and the saltwater on my tongue. It’s like being inside a snow globe. A perfect sphere of tranquility separate from everything and everyone else. Serene.

  Then I feel the ocean pulling at me, the suction dragging out. I know my wave’s coming and get myself lined up. Flat on my chest. Fingernails digging into the wax. Poised. And you just gotta sense it now.

  I paddle to stay ahead of it just enough, until finally I pop up, vibration climbing my legs.

  Find the balance.

  Meet the wave.

  Out here they don’t last long. Only a few seconds until they break and fall and glide gently into the wash.

  I get about an hour in the water before the sun has fully settled into the morning sky. I’m stripping out of my wetsuit at the Jeep when I see Hunter drive up in his Land Rover with Bucky, Foster, Matt and Gavin. Less than a minute later, a second vehicle carting Jesse, Brodowski, Alec, and Trenton pulls into the parking lot. By nine the entire team’s made it out to the beach for a cleanup with the SurfRider Foundation.

  “Nice turnout,” Melanie, the volunteer coordinator, tells me when I introduce the boys. They fall all over themselves to greet her as if they’ve never seen a woman before. “You guys local?”

  “A bit up the road in Hastings,” I say. “We’re from Briar.”

  “Well, it’s great to have you. We appreciate the support.”

  We all take a bucket, some gloves, and trash-picker poles from the tent they’ve got set up on the beach. Foster leers at a group of cute BU sorority girls walking by and raises his hand. “Uh, yeah, I’m new and not a good swimmer. Can I be paired with a buddy? I prefer blondes.”

  “Shut up, dipshit.” Hunter elbows him in the ribs. “Don’t worry,” he assures Melanie. “I’m his chaperone.”

  She grins. “Thank you. Now get to work, gentlemen.”

  “Aye aye, captain,” Matt says. He flashes a grin, and, despite being at least five years older than him, Melanie proves that no woman, of any age, is immune to Anderson’s dimples.

  I’d gotten involved with the foundation back in Huntington Beach, so when I saw they had a local chapter, I signed up without a second’s thought. But not everyone is taking to it with a positive attitude. Only an hour into the cleanup, Bucky’s already pitching a fit.

  “I don’t remember going to court,” he grumbles, trudging through the sand with a bucket. “I feel like I’d remember that.”

  “Stop complaining,” Hunter chides him.

  “And come to think of it, I don’t recall getting arrested, either.”

  “Shut up,” Foster says.

  “So someone tell me why I’m on a chain gang on my day off.” Bucky bends over and starts wrestling with an item buried in the sand. As he does, the rest of us catch a whiff of something foul. Like a dead animal boiled in sewage.

  “Oh damn, what is that?” Matt winces and cove
rs his face with his shirt.

  “Leave it, Buck,” Hunter says. “It’s probably somebody’s dog.”

  “What if it’s a body?” Jesse pulls out his phone, ready to capture the gory reveal.

  “It’s stuck on my stupid pole,” Bucky says irritably. He proceeds to dig sand out of the way, yanking, pulling, fighting with the awful stinking thing that won’t break free until finally he flies backward.

  Sand sprays over our heads. Bucky’s ass hits the ground at the same time that a loaded diaper tangled in a discarded volleyball net lands on top of him. What looks like more than a few discarded rotisserie chicken carcasses lie in the remnants of the hole he’d dug.

  “Holy fuck, man, you’re covered in baby shit!” Foster shouts as we all back away from the horror show.

  “Oh fuck, I’m gonna barf.”

  “That’s so nasty.”

  “It’s all over you!”

  “Get it off me! Get it off!” Bucky writhes around in the sand while Hunter tries to capture the diaper with his grabber thing and Foster keeps kicking more sand on him for some reason.

  Matt is cackling at the scene unfolding in front of us. “Wash it off, dumbass,” he tells Bucky.

  I’m pretty sure Matt means for Bucky to utilize the showers up by the parking lot.

  Instead, Bucky strips out of everything but his boxers and goes sprinting into the freezing surf.

  Oh boy. It’s fifty-four degrees on land and the wind’s blowing at a good clip. But mind over matter, I suppose, because Bucky dives headfirst and swims out, furiously scrubbing and rinsing.

  We all watch his progress. I’m feeling real admiration for the guy. I was out there earlier freezing my ass off in a wetsuit. I shudder to think of that frigid water tickling my bare balls.

  When Bucky finally runs back out of the water, he’s turned a shade of blue and is shivering like a dog in an ASPCA commercial. I swiftly take off my Henley and give it to him. Gavin’s waiting for him with a towel. As for shorts, he’s kind of shit out of luck.

  “Go warm up in the Jeep.” I hand Bucky the keys.

  He snatches them. “I hate the environment.”

  As soon as he’s out of earshot, the guys drop to their knees laughing.

  “He’s gonna be traumatized for life after that,” Foster says, still working off the chortles.

  “Dude’s never coming to the beach again,” Gavin agrees.

  “I don’t blame him.” Hunter grins before sauntering off to toss all the feces-covered garbage in the dumpster.

  With the exception of Bucky, the guys have been pretty good sports about giving up their Saturday morning. And honestly, it means a lot that they took an interest in something important to me. Since coming to the East Coast, I haven’t had a lot of time to reconnect with my passions. Hockey and classes didn’t leave any time for surfing or coming out to the coast. It was Taylor who got me thinking about looking for ways to volunteer again. She’d offered to join us today, but I thought this’d be a good way to get all the guys together. With the season over, we hardly ever get everyone in the same room anymore. Or the same beach, as it were.

  I’m not gonna lie—a part of me missed them. I mean, yeah, I live with like half these assholes, but it’s not the same as sweating it out on the ice together. Skating drills. Spending hours on a bus. Ninety minutes of pure nail-biting determination. I guess I didn’t realize how much hockey meant to me until I played it with them. This team made me love it. These men have become my brothers.

  My phone buzzes in my pocket. I expect it to be Taylor wondering what time I’ll be back, but an unknown number pops up on the screen. By now I know what that means.

  Kai.

  I shouldn’t answer it. Nothing good comes from giving him the satisfaction. There’s this nagging feeling, though, that keeps me from sending him to voicemail. Because when it comes to Kai Turner, I’d rather see him coming. The worst thing I can do is let him sneak up on me again.

  “What?” I bark in answer.

  “Easy, bro. Simmer down.”

  “I’m busy.”

  “I can see that.”

  My blood runs cold. Trying not to draw attention, I look around, scanning the beach, the parking lot. In the distance I glimpse a skinny dude loitering near the restrooms. He looks like a little boy in his big brother’s clothing and I don’t have to see his face to know.

  “How the hell did you find me out here?” I take a few steps away from Hunter and the others.

  “Man, I got eyes everywhere. Don’t you know that by now?”

  “So you followed me.” Fuck. He’s getting more desperate.

  Tracking me down in Buffalo was one thing. Now he’s come to Massachusetts? From Hastings to this beach near Boston. Who knows how long he’s been watching me or what his game is this time. I hesitate to say Kai’s dangerous. I’d never known him to be violent beyond a few brawls. Just kid stuff. Black eyes and bruised egos.

  Then again, I don’t really know him anymore.

  “I wouldn’t have to if you’d just talk to me like a man,” he says.

  I stifle a curse. “I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

  “Yeah, but I do. So you can come up here and we can do this like friends, or I gotta come down there and embarrass you in front of your fancy new douchebags.”

  Fuck him.

  It was like this when I first moved to Huntington Beach, too. Making me feel guilty for leaving the neighborhood, as if I had any choice in the matter. Taunting me about leaving him behind for trust-fund assholes, as if I even had any friends then. Ragging on me for my mom buying me new clothes. It took me a long time to realize what he was doing, the subtle psychological manipulation. Too long.

  “Fine, asshole.”

  I tell Hunter I’m going to take a piss, then head up to the parking lot near the restrooms. I duck into the men’s for a minute before going to the benches near my Jeep. There’s no telling who he might have brought out here with him, and I’d rather not let him lure me too far from the crowds. If he’s gone to all this trouble, that means he wants something pretty bad. I can’t trust a desperate Kai.

  “You’re making this difficult,” he says, sitting beside me.

  “That’s on you. I’d rather be left alone.”

  “Man, I don’t get you, Con. You were my ride-or-die. Back in the day—”

  “Fuck. Just stop.” I turn to study him, this ghost of my childhood that becomes less a memory than a nightmare with every year that passes. “Back in the day is gone, Kai. We’re not kids anymore. I’m nothing to you now.”

  I force myself not to tear my gaze away, but I see in him everything I hate about myself. And then I hate myself a little more for thinking that way. Because at least Kai knows who he is. Yeah, he’s a screw-up, but he’s not walking around with delusions, trying to cram himself into a mold that was made exclusively to keep guys like him, like us, out.

  “Whatever you want, you’re not getting it,” I say in a tired voice. “I’m out, man. I’m done with your drama. Let me move on with my life.”

  “Can’t do that, bro. Not yet.” He slants his head. “You help me out, though, and I go away. You don’t ever need to see me again. You can forget all about me.”

  Fuck. Fucking damn it.

  “You’re in trouble,” I say flatly. Of course he is. It’s in his voice. Not the usual man, I’m in a bind, can you spot me bullshit. He’s scared.

  “I screwed up, alright? I was supposed to do a thing for these guys—”

  “A thing.”

  Kai rolls his eyes, his head wobbling in exasperation. “I was just moving a little product.”

  “Trafficking, Kai.” Goddamn idiot. “You mean trafficking. The fuck’s the matter with you?”

  “It’s not like that, bro. I owed a favor to some guys and they said if I picked up a package from this place and took it to that place, we were square. Easy enough.”

  “But?” Kai’s whole life is a series of easy way outs followed by a
string of critical buts. But I didn’t know anyone was home. But someone talked. But I got wasted and lost the money.

  “I did exactly what they told me,” he protests. “Picked up the package from their boy, took it to the place, dropped it with a guy—”

  “And now they say their guy never got it.”

  Kai deflates with how obvious the answer is. Because any moron would have seen this coming—and Kai never does. “That’s the gist,” he mutters. “I don’t know who’s got it out for me. Somebody’s trying to fuck me up over this and I don’t get the animosity.”

  “What do you expect me to do about it? If you’re looking for a place to hide out, you gotta move along. I’m not having that kind of static around me. I’ve got roommates.”

  “Nah, nothing like that.” He pauses, and the contrite droop of his shoulders says it all. “I just gotta pay them back, right, or they’re getting their money’s worth some other way, okay? Like I know we’ve been here before, Con. I get that. But these people think I stole their shit.”

  He rubs his face. Then, with red, urgent eyes he stares at me, imploring me. We’re two kids again, making a pact in a dark room. Slicing our palms open with a pocketknife.

  “Conor, they’ll kill me or worse. I’m sure of it.”

  Damn him. Damn him for constantly finding ways to reduce himself to the street price of a brick of coke or an envelope of pills. Damn him for letting a bunch of Scarface wannabes run his life. Damn him for holding a gun to his head and telling me if I really care about him, I’d give him more bullets.

  I don’t want to know the answer even as I ask the question. “How much?”

  “Ten grand.”

  “Damn it, Kai.” I can’t sit still anymore. I stumble off the bench and start pacing, my blood boiling with anxious energy. I’d beat the shit out of him if it’d do any good.

  “Look, I know.”

  “Son of a bitch.” I kick a trashcan, anger and desperation bubbling in my gut.

  I don’t even know why I’m letting this get me so fucked up. It’s Kai. He’s acid. Potent, corrosive acid that eats everything it touches. Once you let it touch you, it seeps to the bone. Burns a hole right through you.