If You Dare

by Jessica Lemmon

  “No.”

  He slammed into her harder, his fingers quickening their merciless pace. “Say it.”

  “Shut up, Black.” Her voice was high and tight, her body bowed. She was close. So, so, so close. And it’d been way too long since she’d felt this kind of build. Self-administered orgasms were not the same as Marcus’s thick cock and his artistic fingers painting her into oblivion.

  Another thrust and she realized she had all the light she needed exploding behind her eyelids. Her body bucked. Close, so close to release. Then… he slowed.

  She tipped her head up, her breath sawing out of her lungs. “Don’t stop, please.”

  He languidly stroked her. “I won’t stop, but I won’t take you there unless you say it.”

  Her voice locked in her throat.

  He stroked into her again at the same time giving her the pressure she desired with his thumb. “I have all night.” He lowered his head and licked her nipple.

  And Lily surrendered.

  Head on the pillow again, she licked her lips and said, “Marcus.”

  He thrust deep. “Again.”

  “Marcus,” she repeated, rewarded by another thrust and his thumb teasing her clit. There was the light behind her eyes again. “Oh, God, so close.”

  She couldn’t pinpoint what drove her wilder—the feel of his talented fingers playing her wet flesh or the slide of his body against hers as he slipped inside her. Or the fact that he’d made her say his name.

  “Marcus, please.” It was more a whine than anything, but he responded like she wanted him to. Pounding her deep, continuing his erotic assault, he pushed her to the very edge of control… then over. And she went willingly.

  Her orgasm crashed into her with the same force it would have taken to smash the phantom china plates in the kitchen. This time it was she who shattered, splintering into a thousand pieces and flooding the room with her high cries of pleasure. And yes, his name.

  He moved his hand away from her center and grabbed her hip, grounding himself and using the leverage to launch into her once, twice. By the third thrust, he expelled a hot breath against her neck.

  She caught him against her, threading her hands into his hair. His entire body was hard and unyielding for a handful of seconds until his release. Then she felt his muscles relax and felt a long, low, satisfied exhalation fan the hair at her temple.

  She wrapped her arms around his big shoulders, pulling him as close as she could. He braced his weight to keep from crushing her, but she didn’t think she’d care if he did. She’d gladly suffocate under all of his delicious, sated weight. The thought drew another wordless sound of appreciation from her. “Mmm.”

  “I concur.” He placed a kiss over her pulse, which was gradually returning to normal. He lay there for a few stolen moments, lips frozen over her neck before he uttered a muffled, “I’m trying to get up, I swear.”

  Her quiet chuckle was cut off by the heater and lantern simultaneously kicking on. After so many minutes of near pitch black, it took a moment to adjust her eyes to the light. She blinked a few times, and Marcus lifted his head, locking her in his dark brown gaze. She didn’t look away. Or maybe she couldn’t. He was still inside of her, still filling her. They were linked in the most intimate way, his penetrating gaze holding far too much honesty.

  She really had marginalized him, hadn’t she? Just classified him as a simple. One-dimensional. Maybe because she’d needed to in order to keep her promise to herself never to be taken advantage of again. Or maybe she’d just found it easier to pigeonhole him as a good-time guy and never bothered to get past his joking exterior. But now…she couldn’t doubt the vulnerability so clearly reflected in his eyes. He liked her…as in really, really liked her.

  That might be enough to blow her mind if the sex hadn’t. And it had.

  He closed his eyes and held his lips on hers for a long, soft kiss while he slid out of her for the final time and groaned into her mouth.

  “You won. I screamed your name.”

  He blew out a laugh. “I think we can safely call that a tie.”

  “That’s fair.” The air shifted between them, a sudden awkwardness settling in. Gone were the easy teasing and jokes. Not after that intimate pairing. Not after the way he’d so totally controlled her and she’d so gladly given up that control.

  Wordlessly, he climbed off her and rummaged on their shared bed. She rolled to her side and found her discarded pants, sitting on the edge of the mattress, her back to him to give him privacy while he disposed of the condom.

  She was so uncomfortable. Not nervous exactly, but definitely not calm. They dressed silently, her unknotting her panties from the legs of her pants as he turned his shirt right side out, every so often sparing a smile for each other.

  Despite the slight post-sex awkwardness, she decided she liked him like this. Open, but quiet. Sexy as sin on a stick. He stood over her, propping his hands on his narrow hips, his wide chest mouthwatering even hidden beneath his T-shirt.

  “You know what?” he asked, his voice tipping into that lust-soaked tone that made her damp in all the right places.

  “What?”

  “I’m starving.” His eyebrows pinched as if his comment surprised him, then he let loose a grin that squeezed her heart.

  Chapter Ten

  “I knew those weren’t safe,” Lily said, mourning the loss of her Corn Nuts. “I only ate a handful of them.”

  Marcus continued chewing, mumbled something that sounded like “a shame,” then upended the bag and drained the bits at the bottom into his mouth. He crumbled the bag into a ball, crunching merrily.

  She shook her head and made do with the rest of the cheesecake. “Where did the wine go, anyway?”

  “How do you lose things when we don’t go anywhere?”

  “Shut up.” She tagged him in the arm as she spotted the wine bottle on its side across the room under one of the boarded windows. Thankfully, Marcus had wedged the cork into the top so it wasn’t leaking precious Merlot into the cracks in the floor. “Found it.”

  She crawled off the mattress, and he wolf whistled. She’d expected him to. Her butt was in the air, and she’d been waggling it pretty good for him. Shooting him a deviant smile over her shoulder, she waggled it again.

  “Don’t tempt me, woman. I had one condom.” He held up a finger. “One.”

  She snagged the bottle, smiling to herself. He hadn’t had enough of her, and even though she shouldn’t, she liked that. Maybe because after sleeping with him, she’d found she wanted more. To learn he was as insatiable as she was a huge turn on.

  When she turned to tell him that there were plenty of condom-less pastimes they could explore, a bang! against the board next to her head startled a shriek from her instead.

  Before she’d seen him move, Marcus was at her side, helping her scramble to her feet and positioning his body between hers and the window. She had upended the wine bottle, holding it by the neck to wield as a weapon.

  “Tree?” she asked. Desperately.

  “I don’t think so.” The foreboding in his tone didn’t make her feel any better. Neither did the fact that he shushed her when she started to speak again.

  Another muffled bang sounded, this time from the other side of the house. “I think something’s outside,” came his husky whisper.

  “Like what?” she asked, her voice strangled.

  “I hope not people.”

  Her stomach lurched. Where she’d felt warm and safe in his arms a moment ago, now Lily felt exposed, vulnerable. And foolish. They were in the middle of nowhere. The danger lurking outside the walls may not have been from some silly urban legend, but from someone made of flesh and bone who intended to do them bodily harm.

  He extinguished the lantern, leaving them in the pale orange glow of the heater. He faced her, staying her shoulders with his hands. “Wait here.”

  “Are you crazy?” She clasped his arms, keeping her voice as low as she could while feeling hyster
ical. “Don’t leave me alone! What if they have guns?”

  She couldn’t make out his expression in the dim light, but she felt his patient smile all the way down to the soles of her shoes. He opened her palm with rough fingers and dropped a metal cylinder into her hand. The flashlight.

  He lowered his head and whispered against the top of her ear. “Lil,” he started, and already the fear in her stomach was receding, being replaced by lust.

  Jeez. The man was a drug.

  “I doubt whoever’s out there is carrying a gun,” he said.

  Oh, hello, Fear. Welcome back.

  “Probably just some kids daring each other to run up and knock on the door,” he continued. “Ridiculous.” He kissed her temple lightly. “Who would come up here on a dare?”

  She tried to smile, but she was too afraid.

  “I’ll only be a sec. Find your keys.” Then he turned and walked into the kitchen, lantern in hand. She followed as far as the doorway and watched him fuss with the back door until the windowpane rattled and the door popped open with a squeak. Moonlight streamed through the gap.

  He gave her a brief nod over his shoulder and walked outside.

  Lily shielded the narrow beam of light as best she could while Marcus did a preliminary investigation of the mansion’s grounds.

  She’d overturned her purse (again) and emptied out the grocery bags as quietly as possible. Although if there were people out there, it wouldn’t matter how much noise she made. They’d no doubt seen her car out front. But if it was mischievous raccoons or hungry coyotes, there was no sense in broadcasting her whereabouts.

  She held the flashlight between her teeth and folded the last of the sheets and pillowcases, repacking as she went. The keys weren’t under the mattress, which was on its way to deflating thanks to the workout she and Marcus had on top of it. The recent memory would have made her smile if she wasn’t so disappointed to find nothing beneath it but the leaf-strewn floor.

  Stomach clenching, she looked at her phone, noticing the battery icon blinking at three percent with no signal inside the house. Daylight wasn’t far ahead, but it was still dark outside and would be for a while. And Marcus was out in it. Worry crept in, but she pushed it aside. He was beyond capable of taking care of himself.

  She scrunched the pockets of her hoodie uselessly. Even if the keys had been in her jacket, she was sure they would have fallen out when Marcus took it off her earlier. She turned to the kitchen next, on the off off chance she’d overlooked them when she’d investigated earlier. She didn’t make it a single step before she heard a familiar jingle coming from upstairs. A jolly sound anywhere else…but behind these walls, it was anything but.

  She had two keys. A house key. A car key. Because of her minimalist keychain, she’d needed a bauble large enough to help her locate it in her oversize purse. Last Christmas she’d found just the thing to tie to the ring—a pair of large jingle bells only better suited to Rudolph himself.

  She went back into the living room, her steps slow and purposeful, her heart thundering. The bells jangled again and a rash of goose bumps leaped to the surface of her arms. The sound hadn’t come from her purse. Or this room. Or even downstairs. It’d come from the murky blackness at the top of the staircase. Real, ice-cold fear snaked down her spine, turning every brave part of her body yellow. How on earth…?

  “Find them?”

  She spun toward the voice behind her, her open palm landing over her tortured heart. Marcus stood at the front door, his hand resting on the knob. He lowered the lantern and shut the door behind him.

  “Must have been animals. I didn’t see anyone out there.” His brow creased with concern the longer he looked at her. “You okay? What happened?”

  Unable to explain yet another mysterious sound behind these walls, she shook her head.

  “Enough.” He advanced on her, his steps firm, his voice an angry echo. She might have flinched if not for the unveiled concern in his eyes. “Enough of this stupid bet. We can walk to the road and call Clive from there.” Snagging her hand with his, he started for the door. “Let’s not push our luck.”

  His palm warming hers, and the fading fringes of their time together, almost made her compliant enough to follow his lead. Almost. She stopped, planting her feet.

  He stopped, too, and turned his confusion on her. “What?”

  The voice. The bells. He hadn’t been around for either occurrence. “Where were you just now?”

  “Outside.” The confusion morphed into anger. His mouth flattened into a line. “You know that.”

  “Do I?” She thought back to the mask incident. The way he’d been trying to get her to call off this bet from the beginning. The memory of how another man had taken advantage of her threaded into her brain and sewed itself to this patch of time.

  Granted, Marcus was not Emmett, but she wouldn’t be played twice. She tugged her hand from his. He had been by her side when they’d heard the crash in the kitchen, but maybe he’d somehow caused that sound, too. Maybe he’d planned to get her good and scared. Maybe…she thought with sinking dread…he’d planned all of it. Including the part where he got into her pants.

  Panic radiated from her limbs. Surely he wouldn’t…would he? She searched his face, growing angrier by the moment. Having been a sucker in the past for men with knee-weakening charm, she knew she could easily be taken advantage of again.

  “It was you,” she said numbly. “Upstairs.”

  It was the only explanation. He’d vanished outside and demanded she stay in here, which made no sense when she thought about it. And now he’d waltzed through the front door and suggested they leave. Coincidentally, just a few hours shy of meeting her goal.

  “My keychain has Christmas bells on it. I heard them upstairs.” She pointed toward the second floor. “There’s no other explanation for how they got from here to up there.” None…other than Marcus taking them when she wasn’t looking and sneaking up there while she stayed behind to search for them.

  “Oh, you think that was me?”

  He looked pissed. She gulped but stood her ground. “Was it?”

  “How did I sneak back in here, creep silently up a staircase held together by rusted nails and wood rot, jangle your keys, and bolt back down here and come through the front door?”

  He made a point.

  “Okay, maybe a trick, then. You have them and jangled them before you came in.” She wrapped her arms around his middle and grabbed his ass, patting his back pockets in search of her keys. When she turned up empty-handed, she thrust her hands into his front pockets and felt around in there.

  “I don’t have them, Lil.” He lashed an arm around her waist and pulled her flush against one strong thigh, as hard as the striking angles of his angry face. A muscle in his jaw ticked as he glared down at her. “But feel free to keep looking.”

  “If you don’t, then how the hell—”

  Clomp.

  Clomp.

  Marcus lifted his chin and studied the cobwebbed ceiling. She tilted her head as well, not that there was anything to see. And there was no mistaking what the sound was. Footsteps.

  Clomp.

  Clomp.

  Clomp.

  They finally ended over their heads, stopping with a final clomp. The silence that followed was a living thing, wearing her heartbeat like a cloak. Her breathing turned hectic, the hairs on her arms stood unbidden. And her brain fumbled for a rational reason for who or what could be standing directly overhead.

  “Tell me you have an explanation for that,” she begged in a hoarse whisper.

  “You mean other than the fact that someone is up there?” His voice was quiet, his face drained of color, his lips thinned. Pale light was visible through a gap in the waterlogged ceiling. The steps began again, blotting out the light briefly as they retreated to the other side of the house.

  Clomp.

  Clomp.

  Clomp.

  Then they vanished into the silence once again.
>
  Both fists wound in Marcus’s T-shirt, the words trembled from her lips. “I take it back. Let’s walk to the road. Unless…you think it could be Clive? Did you ask him to sneak back to scare me?” That didn’t even sound like something Clive would do, but she’d take the explanation. She’d take any explanation. “Tell me the truth. I’m freaking out here.”

  “Not Clive.” He lowered his gaze slowly, meeting her eyes.

  “Raccoons?”

  “Wearing boots?” His eyebrows jumped and he was silent for a few seconds.

  “What do we do?” She wasn’t beyond suggestions at this point. And she believed him about the keys.

  “See if your phone works.”

  The button meant to bring her phone to life only produced the cautionary beep of her deceased battery. The screen went black. “Yours?”

  He shook his head.

  That brought the count to two dead phones, a pair of unexplained footsteps upstairs, and one set of missing keys now in the hands of whoever…or whatever…was tromping around on the second floor.

  Perfect.

  He left her side suddenly, and she was alarmed to find herself alone by the door. She scrambled after him. “Where are you going?”

  “Getting your keys, McIntire. Stay put.” He placed one boot on the first step of the staircase and one hand on the railing.

  She grabbed his belt loop and tugged. “Are you nuts? Don’t go up there.”

  He turned and palmed her face. “Not nuts,” he said, his voice hard and soft at the same time. “I just want to get the hell out of here.”

  So did she. Hawaii or not. But she really, really didn’t want Marcus to go upstairs and leave her down here alone.

  “We’ll call a draw on Hawaii.” She forced a smile that Marcus didn’t meet. She guessed he was still angry about her accusing him of taking her keys. “We can bet something else. How about—”

  His stony eyes matched his severe expression. She backed from the staircase to the floor, but his scowl didn’t improve with her vantage point.

  “Do you think I give a good goddamn about Hawaii?” he boomed, the light from the Coleman in his hand casting shadows on his handsome face.