Dare Me
Page 7
“And… it just got too hot in here.” Tucker ran off before we knew it, breaking Callum into a sexy laugh. God, did I miss that laugh. It was low, content and it rolled over my skin like a sensual massage. That combined with the way his stare traveled so slowly down my body had me flushed with instant, tingling heat. I bit my lip and cocked my head.
“Like it?”
His reply came at once and with ease. “You’re beautiful.” Two words and I was filled to the brim with gratification.
“Then I guess it’s the one.”
“Probably.” Callum unbuttoned his shirt, giving me a peek of that muscled chest. “But that shouldn’t stop you from trying the rest of those on.” He nodded at all the designer pieces hanging around me. I was surrounded by dozens of colors and textiles. Leather, suede and silk. Coral, saffron and sage. There was an array of stilettos and strappy heels that Tucker had picked out and lined up at my feet. I felt spoiled, drowning in luxury and I was thoroughly enjoying every second of it. So it took me by surprise when my chest tightened suddenly with a pang of guilt. I blinked away her face. My mother’s chapped lips and ugly laugh. “Lipstick on a pig, baby girl.” I always found Trish’s voice so odd. It was high-pitched and babyish but at the same time, it sounded elderly, reedy and constantly gasping for breath like someone on her deathbed. It was a thing of nightmares and the memory never failed to freeze me in place for a few seconds. I shuddered when Callum broke me out of it.
“Not a fan?” I heard his smirk before I saw it. When I looked up, he was in a light grey sweater that clung to his long, tapered torso, just tight enough to give a hint of the deep line down the center of his pecs. The sleeves wrapped snug around his broad shoulders and biceps and pushed up nicely above those thick forearms. It was basically the best thing ever.
“Buy it.”
“Done.” Just like that, he whipped it off. Jesus, I breathed. It felt like I was in a museum of the most beautiful specimens on Earth as I just stood there for a bit, watching Callum sift shirtless through his other picks, his jeans hanging an inch lower than usual and his body like a sculptor’s masterpiece at every angle. He was impossibly chiseled and gorgeous and I was getting way too hot in such an expensive dress, so as he pulled on a blue shirt, I picked a thin, flowy piece to try next. He was adjusting shiny cufflinks when I reached for the curtain.
“Leave it.”
He didn’t look up as he said it. I stared at him with a second of surprise until he peered up with a wickedly sexy look in his blue eyes. “Keep it open,” he said, his tone mischievous but firm. It sent a ripple of hot need straight to my core. I knew that being naked in front of him was going to be torture if we were in public and supposed to be behaving. Still, I obliged. I kept the curtain open and he watched me undress, offering no help as I bent, arched and twisted my body to reach zippers, buckle and straps. Callum simply stood there, knotting silk ties at a languorous pace and sliding his eyes with such lust over my body that I could barely tell when I was naked or clothed. The arousal in his eyes never wavered. It was thick, steady, filled with visible appreciation for the three hours we were there, occupying the only two dressing rooms with our back and forth striptease and eye-fucks.
I was practically sweating by the time we got into his car to go back to the apartment. To my disappointment, we showered and got ready in our separate rooms. But like an asshole, he left his door cracked open. So I did the same and we spent the next hour catching half-second peeks of one another in various states of undress. My favorite had to be the glimpse I snuck while he stood completely naked in front of his dresser picking out boxers. One glimpse of his V-shaped back and sculpted ass was enough to keep me writhing the entire car ride over. It was the kind of absolute torture I enjoyed.
At least up until the Times crew swung by The Pike.
There was a lady with a camera and a couple guys with lights. They had just begun setting up when a black-haired woman in a brilliant, white dress pushed through and past me to greet Oz. From the way they spoke, I could tell they’d met before, and it took only a minute of Oz’s booming voice for me to gather that she was the writer from the Times. Ana Hale. Her name sounded like a comic book heroine and her body had the sharp curves to match. I noticed when she pulled Callum aside to talk. I could tell from their body language, the way she spoke, that they’d met at least once before. He sat on a leather chair and nodded for her to take a seat at the one across but she perched herself on the edge of the table. He laughed. Leaning to one side, I watched Callum’s stare drift briefly from her eyes to her pinched waistline right in front of him.
And all at once, my insecurity flared. The day’s foreplay seemed suddenly like a thousand red flags. Callum had had ample opportunity to finally take me and claim me the way he once lived to. Our sexual tension had gone from thick to so rock solid you couldn’t stick a knife in it. But maybe that was a bad thing. Maybe it meant that he had no intentions of resuscitating that part of us. The sex we once shared had a life of its own. It lived and breathed like an animal that wrapped around our brains and numbed out any thoughts that had nothing to do with one another. It overtook us. And Callum had been goal-driven, hungry for independence even before starting a business that thrived at his touch.
So maybe he was done with being consumed. Maybe he was done with me.
The room around me spun even before I took a sip of a drink, and I knew I was losing it to paranoia when I jumped to the conclusion that Callum planned to use me as his human foreplay. We got each other hotter than anyone else could and we both knew that. But maybe he’d take our fun to its furthest limit but then fuck another girl to keep his head straight, his thoughts neat and gathered with which to still complete his work. The theory was farfetched and screwed up but that was exactly what convinced me that it might be right.
I thanked God when Isabel arrived because I needed someone to talk to. And I needed to know I wasn’t imagining the dramatic positions Ana’s body took when Callum came around. “No, that’s borderline pornographic,” Isabel confirmed as Ana arched her back like a cat, bending over a table to write something down for Callum. “He said this writer tracked him down for the piece? I wonder why.”
“Mm-hm.” I watched her take her bun down and shake it out, cooing and rubbed Callum’s cheek when she accidentally smacked his face with her lustrous hair.
“This chick,” Isabel clucked. I turned in search of a lowball.
“I’m gonna go ahead and start the drinking now.”
With help from Logan, Isabel and several of Oz’s lady friends, we killed two bottles of ten-year-old Fine Oak and luckily, by the time we were too drunk to pose, the crew had gotten enough shots to pack up and call it a day. But the more than sufficient buzz was doing little to help my mood. I couldn’t alleviate my own disappointment. I’d been hoping to be the one Callum touched this evening. The one whose knee he put his hand on. I had held out for it all day and for some reason took our flirty looks and flat-out gaping of each other as a sign that tonight was it.
But now he was ignoring me to let Ana Hale stick around longer than everyone else and murmur into his ear. She sidled up next to Callum while Logan cleaned up, crossing her legs so that her skirt slid up her thighs and her foot hooked behind his leg. I could feel my insecurity rise as I watched, leaning over the balcony of the VIP mezzanine, where I’d escaped to indulge my negative thoughts. Callum hadn’t said anything this morning about being exclusive. He had said he’d try to get us back to us but there had never been a name for our relationship so I didn’t even know what that meant.
“Don’t worry.” Oz scared the shit out of me by coming up out of nowhere. I clutched my racing heart but managed a reply.
“If you’re telling me not to worry, it means you see it, too.”
“That he’s letting her flirt with him? He’s only being nice so she’ll write good things about us.” Oz leaned over next to me. He was so tall the railing only reached below his belt and I feared he’d topple r
“Yeah?”
“You don’t believe me?”
“Maybe if you go into more detail.” The two lowballs of whisky had my voice sounding low and jaded but that worked well to get Oz to talk. He shrugged his wide shoulders.
“I’ve just never seen him like this before.” He ran a hand through his long hair, quite possibly silkier than mine. “I know I’ve only known him for about five years but I’ve seen him the most in that time and I know that when he cares about someone, he doesn’t show it. Unless it’s you. Then he can’t fucking help it and trust me, he’s trying. But I can still hear it in his voice, I can see it in his eyes. I’ve seen more expression in that face of his these past few days than I have in the past five years combined, so if I were you, I wouldn’t waste my worry on little Ana over there. If Callum wanted her, he’d had her over the sink in the bathroom right now.”
“He could have me there now but he won’t make a move.” I was either too drunk or bitter to censor myself. It was one or the other. Oz grinned as we gazed down at Callum.
“Eh, matter of time. I’m his business partner and I know that Cal’s used to being in control. But he’s got none of that around you. He doesn’t want to give it up so he’s just taking it slow and you should take that as a good sign. He values his time. He’s not the type to stand and stare and wait around for fun. The Cal I know usually sees her, fucks her and carries on the next morning.” Oz wagged a long finger at me. “But not with you, lassie.”
“Charming. But as flattered as I am, I’m not sure I can wait any longer.” I really couldn’t. The time preceding my return to New York had been, in an understatement, hell on earth. I’d had the occasional fling or one-night stand in my six years away from Callum but the past year had seen nothing. I hadn’t planned it that way. I barely even noticed while I was at Sunstone because sex was the last thing on my mind. I was just trying to keep myself positive enough to keep fighting – to keep battling that quicksand so I could stay above just enough to breathe, to keep myself from drowning completely in the misery. Pleasure was a foreign concept when my daily goal was to survive long enough to get away. It wasn’t till the flight into LaGuardia that I tallied up the months of my dry spell. Thirteen.
Six years away from Callum, thirteen months since I’d had sex and a world of torture as I finally let myself think about how badly I needed it.
“Christ, woman.” I must’ve been wearing the need on my face because Oz’s green eyes were suddenly staring in awe. “He’s lucky he’s my best mate or I’d already have your dress on the floor and you naked on that wall.”
My eyebrows flashed. “Wow. Oz.”
“Just a man of truth,” he laughed – and apparently loud enough to get Callum’s attention because suddenly, he looked up at us with narrowed eyes. Oz looked. “Aw, look at the poor man. He thinks I’m telling you things I shouldn’t be.”
“You are.”
“That is true.”
I smirked down at Callum, taking too much pleasure in his sheer discomfort. I liked that he shook his head at me, looking pissed off when we locked eyes. It was twisted but that familiar expression got my blood rushing to all the right spots. Suddenly, I’d decided that I was going to get exactly what I wanted from him tonight. I needed it. I really did. Soon, deep and hard, and I was willing to be a little ruthless to swing things in my favor. Callum was the one I’d picked up that trait from.
“Keep going, Oz. Tell me things he doesn’t want me to know.”
“Uh, I’d love to but…”
“Just pretend. I want to get him a little angry.”
“Oh, you’re a sick little puppy, aren’t you?” Oz wet his lips with wicked fascination. When I shrugged, he laughed. “That’s okay, I’m good at this game. Let’s start with a little whispering to get him nice and worked up,” he murmured, leaning in so close his long hair spilled over my arm. He grinned when I whispered gibberish in his ear. “Aw, you don’t like that do you?” he called down to Callum. “I bet you like this even less.” He draped a long arm around my shoulder, his forearm resting heavy on my breast. My mouth dropped and I looked at Oz, who let his tongue loll visibly behind his parted lips as his fingers stroked the side of my ribs. Callum’s stare followed Oz’s graze on my skin, looking a second from doing something.
But then he sneered and laughed.
“Fuck. He’s trying to be good in front of the reporter lady,” Oz muttered to me before leaning into my neck. He pushed my hair back and inhaled with deep exaggeration. “Like roses she smells!”
Across the room, Logan paused in the middle of cleaning. “I feel like you should stop.”
“Aw, shut it, ya bawbag!” With that utterly romantic phrase, Oz grabbed me, smashed a hot kiss on my lips and pulled me clean out of view. I gasped, pressed to his massive chest, our whisky breath mixing as I heard table legs skidding violently downstairs. Then came the footsteps. My heart beat fast. They belonged to Callum. “Oh, I’m gonna get it,” Oz whispered giddily into my mouth. Once we heard Callum reach the top step, Oz squeezed a handful of my hair.
And just like that, it was on.
Oz cackled the entire time as he dodged and swung with true force. They were fighting the way I’d seen Callum do with Logan over the years – both kidding and serious at the same time. I had no idea how it worked. I just chalked it up to boy behavior and tonight, it had my hand shoved over my mouth, stifling laughter and the semi-real fear that turned to excitement when Callum finally cast his hot, angry stare on me. Panting against the wall, I felt our eyes lock like magnets. I felt the words I wanted to hear at the tip of his tongue and I waited what felt like ages for him to speak them.
“We’re going home.”
Thank. God.
He pulled me away as Oz laughed and shook the Tarzan hair out of his face. “Fucking right. Now quit being a cunt and give that poor girl what you both want!”
Chapter Nine
Callum
I didn’t touch her on the way out. I didn’t touch her during the ride back or in the elevator up to the penthouse. I barely looked at her. Wouldn’t let her come near me either. I had every intention of claiming her.
She was just going to wait for it.
It wasn’t entirely out of my need to punish her for what she had me watch at The Pike. It was partly to give her a chance to breathe – take in all the air her lungs possibly could. Because once I sunk into her, there’d be no stopping till that body had come twice and sweated out every man’s touch beside mine.
“Go on.”
I had Lake walk ahead of me into the apartment when the elevator doors opened. She didn’t hesitate but I could see her body tightening with every neat step across the marble foyer. At the lounge, she’d had a clear idea of what was going to happen when we got home but I could tell now that she’d lost grasp of the situation. I’d reclaimed her comfort, taken back the controls. She got us to this point but now her body would wait for my prompt, respond only to me. It had always been a decadent back and forth with us.
Watching her, I thought of where I wanted her¸ which part of the penthouse best suited the way I needed to claim her tonight. When she paused and looked over her shoulder at me, her flushed lips parted and her hair spilling down her back, I knew. “Where to?”
“Upstairs.”
My stare raked up her smooth thighs as she walked ahead of me. She was walking sex. I suppressed a groan because just when I thought my arousal had pulsed to its ceiling, it found a second wind. I undid my belt, having swelled an inch for every one her skirt hiked up before my eyes. For Christ’s sake, I had never felt bigger in my life. I slid the poor condom out of my wallet. The steel between my legs was about to put it to work.
“Where now?”
“Left.”
A grin tugged my lips when I saw her hesitate. She hadn’t seen this room before. It was the only one in the apartment to which I kept the door shut. Before tonight, it was because it was a shame to the rest of my home. It was big, empty, undecorated. A blank slate despite the fact that I’d moved in more than a year ago. I just hadn’t had the vision for it. Save for two pieces, it was bare – no tables, no chairs, no paintings or shelves. But tonight, it was the room I needed Lake in.
She gave the sexiest laugh I’d ever heard upon stepping into it.
“Let me just guess where you want me.” There was an irresistible mix of surprise and arousal in her voice as she took in the room’s twin pieces of décor – two antiqued-glass mirrors the size and shape of my enormous windows. Lake chose one and walked up to it, hitting me with those bedroom eyes through the reflection. Once she was in front of the mirror, she looked at its counterpart to our left. Her tongue ran over her lip when she realized my intention: to drink in her beauty from head to toe, and at every angle because anything less was a shame and a waste. If I had a view of her gorgeous back, her spectacular front and her perfect side, I had everything I wanted.
Well. Almost. My eyes were set. My cock was getting there.
Lake gathered her hair and looked over her shoulder at me as I pulled the zipper down her back. I didn’t realize what a fucking weakness that was for me until tonight. Stepping back, I undid my shirt and zipper as she slid the dress down her mouthwatering shape. I wet my lips. I was never going to get tired of watching her heeled feet step out of puddles of cloth. I was never going to get sick of seeing her back arch as she unclasped her bra. Her body was an entire world of grace for me to admire.
“Off?” She lifted an eyebrow through the mirror.
“You know the answer to that.”
Once her breasts sprang free from their confines, my cock followed suit, and aggressively, as if asking what the hell had taken so long. Before I could even tell her where to put her hands, she flattened them over the glass. She leaned forward, curving her back and peering behind, presenting herself to me in a way that seized my last ounce of control. In one motion, I slid the rubber over my shaft and thrust every inch of myself inside her. Holy fuck. My fingers dug in her hips, her sex ripping a ferocious growl from my throat. Her own sharp gasp breathed back out in the form of a long moan, my name lost somewhere inside it.
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