If You Dare

by Sandy Lowe

  Emma shook her head. “You’re the best immersion therapy I’ve ever had.”

  Lauren shoved her hand back into her pants so Emma wouldn’t see her fingers tremble. She needed to get them out of this damn kitchen and on their way to dinner. “We should—”

  “Will you kiss me again, please?” Emma asked.

  Lauren groaned. Fuuuck. “Emma, you wanted to go out to dinner.”

  Emma began twisting her hands again. “I know. I still do. I just want to feel what it’s like again. The kiss.”

  Patience was the virtue Lauren hated the most, especially right now. “If I kiss you again, we won’t make it to dinner.”

  Emma’s eyes darkened. “No?”

  Lauren couldn’t help herself, she backed Emma up against the sink, pushed Emma’s dress up to mid-thigh, and then slid a leg between hers.

  “If you play with fire you’ll get burned,” she murmured, her mouth so fucking close to Emma’s she could already feel the kiss.

  Emma gasped and squeezed her eyes shut. Her breathing was ragged again, but this time it didn’t appear to be nerves. “Please.” Emma leaned into Lauren’s thigh so her pussy pressed against Lauren’s pants. Ohfuckyes. “I want you to kiss me.”

  Lauren did the only thing possible. The only thing anyone with half a brain and a functioning mouth would do in this situation. She gave the girl what she wanted.

  Emma’s mouth was searingly sweet, chili pepper wrapped in candy cane. Lauren planted her hands on the back of Emma’s head and kissed her hard, harder than she should have. Emma gasped and she took advantage of the opportunity to slide her tongue inside Emma’s mouth, discovering every inch of her with nips and thrusts. She tugged on Emma’s bottom lip until Emma moaned and went liquid against her.

  “Is this what you wanted?” Lauren asked between kisses. “You want me to kiss you like I’m going to fuck you?”

  Emma whimpered and rubbed her pussy jerkily against Lauren’s thigh. “Yes.”

  She pressed her forehead to Emma’s and caught her breath. Caught her common sense. Caught her fucking sanity that had taken the keys and was currently on the joyride of its life. Emma wanted this, she wanted her, that was clear. Kissing her until Emma came riding her thigh was blow-her-brains-out sexy, and she couldn’t believe she was stopping. If this were a movie, she’d be screaming at the actor right now. Just fuck the girl, you moron. But she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t actually seduce Emma. Not when Emma’d made her desires clear.

  I want to matter enough to have dinner with.

  Lauren stared at Emma flushed and sweaty. Emma’s thighs wrapped around her leg. Emma’s pussy tight against her. So beautiful and so gloriously undone from nothing more than a kiss. She wanted to see what happened when they more than kissed. When she stroked Emma’s naked skin, sucked on her nipples, pushed her tongue inside Emma’s pussy. The weight of her need was making her dizzy and tempting her to be careless.

  Lauren kissed her again, but this time the kiss wasn’t driven by force. It wasn’t hard or demanding or consuming. She kissed her the way she’d planned to, after dinner. Not an I-want-to-fuck-you kiss. Rather, an I-like-you kiss. A you’re-special kiss. An I’m-lucky-to-be-kissing-you kiss. She traced the curve of Emma’s jaw, trailed her fingers slowly down Emma’s throat until they rested on her shoulders. Emma sighed and wound her arms around Lauren’s waist until they rested at the small of her back. The kiss was lazy and languid, the heat rising slowly like steam from a sauna, engulfing them.

  Lauren stroked her shoulders and kissed her as tenderly as she knew how, savoring the warmth, sinking into a moment she wanted to capture and never let go. She studiously ignored the churning in her belly that told her, in no uncertain terms, this kind of kissing was a very bad idea. Sex was simple, yet somehow, even with Emma’s pussy pressed to her leg, this didn’t feel like fucking. Lauren might be about to take her to dinner, but caring wasn’t on the menu.

  Chapter Six

  The restaurant Lauren had chosen was small and homey. A converted factory with centuries old tin ceilings and wide plank floorboards patchy with four shades of stain. The half dozen tables were solid oak, covered in cheap red cloth, and the walls boasted black-and-white photos of the Sunrise Falls of yesteryear. The hostess led them to a table by the window, thankfully far enough from the bar that Garth Brooks was merely a rumble.

  Lauren pulled out Emma’s chair. “No candlelight. Sorry.”

  “I didn’t mean for you to take me literally.” Emma sat gratefully. If she was sitting down she wouldn’t have to concentrate on keeping herself upright and walking in a straight line. Sexual arousal had a way of pulling her focus. It’s not like she had eons of experience with sex, but she hadn’t been living under a rock. Other people somehow managed to do two things at once. Christian Grey could tie up Anastasia Steele with a raging hard-on, so why couldn’t Emma talk dirty, or touch Lauren back, or walk in a goddamn straight line when she was out of her mind turned on? The question mattered. She really wanted to enjoy dinner, and the throbbing in her panties had claimed squatters’ rights and was there for the duration.

  “I like to give you what you want.” Lauren had a look in her eye that suggested they weren’t really talking about candles.

  “Lucky me.” Emma pulled the menu toward her and studied it like she’d be taking a test. God. Had this been a bad idea? She’d spent the better part of two hours getting ready, choosing just the right sexy but not slutty heels, agonizing over the perfect shade of lipstick, fussing with her hair that wouldn’t sit smoothly. She stifled a grin. The fussing had been both futile and completely worth it. Lauren had liked her hair, and Emma was surprised to discover that she’d liked Lauren running her fingers through it. Weird the things that made her hot sometimes.

  She was looking forward to learning more about Lauren, about who she was, what mattered to her. All the things that led her to be the person she’d become. She’d been ridiculously excited for the not-a-date. But then Lauren had traced a line along the edge of her panties and all at once the very last thing she wanted was conversation. She’d wanted to stand there forever and let Lauren’s fingers roam wherever the hell she intended for them to roam. Sunrise Falls wasn’t exactly brimming with girl-meets-girl romantic possibilities, but she had a few lackluster relationships up her sleeve. Being turned on wasn’t a new sensation. But she’d never felt such desire to be taken before. Not outside of her wildest fantasies, at least. And Lauren didn’t make it easy. She hadn’t been content to let her stand there a passive reveler in the pleasure. No. Lauren had wanted to talk. She’d wanted Emma to admit how it had all felt out loud.

  She’d wanted to know.

  Lauren’s questions were caresses that sent sensation blazing a trail down her stomach and between her legs. The fire catching and spreading until her entire body was engulfed. Emma hadn’t been able to say very much, getting halfway there and then trailing off in embarrassment. Her heartbeat pounding in her ears and her tongue Velcroed to the roof of her mouth.

  What did Lauren see in her? She wasn’t the least bit sexy. But Lauren seemed to enjoy touching her anyway. Kissing her, sliding her leg between Emma’s. Hadn’t that been the most perfect torture. She’d lost all sense of herself, rubbing against Lauren with shameless desperation. She could feel her face heating and willed it away. Her cheeks were the freaking town crier advertising her dirty mind.

  Lauren smiled at her over the top of the wine list. “You’re awfully quiet over there. Not having second thoughts, are you?”

  She was, but not the way Lauren meant. Her second and third and fourth thoughts revolved around ditching dinner and rolling into bed. “I was thinking we want the same thing, you and I.”

  “I’d say that’s an accurate observation.”

  “Not what I meant.” Emma smiled. “I wanted to have dinner tonight because I wanted to get to know you. For you to get to know me, so that, if or when we did have sex, it would mean more than…”

  �
��Friction?” Lauren supplied for her when Emma trailed off.

  Emma nodded. “I’m not a random fuck kind of girl.”

  “Noted and appreciated and cured by filet mignon,” Lauren said.

  Emma nodded again. “True. But it’s not just me, is it? You want to get to know me too. Just in a different way, with a different language.”

  Lauren put the wine list down and rested her chin in her palm. “Go on.”

  “Well, okay, so back at the library you had to hold my hand, right? I mean, you had to. You couldn’t be open without touching me.”

  Lauren frowned. “Well—”

  “Just hear me out. It’s a good thing. Tonight, you couldn’t help touching me again, and yeah, some of that was seduction, but you’d already agreed to dinner, so it wasn’t really necessary. Asking me about being nervous in social situations wasn’t about sex. Asking if there was anything you could do to help wasn’t about sex. Asking me how I felt when we were kissing was about sex, but it was more than that too. You actually wanted to know. Like the answer mattered.”

  Like she had mattered.

  Lauren’s frown was so deep, it looked engraved. “Well, yeah. Obviously, it matters. Anyone you get naked with should matter, at least to the degree that you can appreciate what attracts them, what makes them hot, what they want from sex.”

  Emma wasn’t sure she’d ever met anyone who actually lived by that principle, let alone been in bed with them. The whole point of casual sex was that it didn’t really matter, right? Wham-bam and move on. She’d never understood the appeal. If you were just in it for the orgasm, wouldn’t it be easier to load your vibrator with a couple of double A’s and invest in some adult entertainment? Orgasms were nice and everything, but for her sex was about connecting, and she thought that maybe Lauren agreed. Talking about sex, asking questions, that was connecting, right? Only with kissing instead of dating.

  “Okay, yes,” Emma said. “I want the same thing too. But my version is superior because it involves steak and also, your entire backstory starting with where you went to preschool.”

  “You call that superior? Mine involves those delicious little sounds you make when I touch you. And screaming orgasms.”

  Emma half expected the room to tilt when all her blood rushed between her legs and began to pulse there as if her heartbeat had officially changed address. The suggestion that Lauren could make her come so hard she screamed had her fighting back a moan. Somehow, she managed to raise her eyebrows. “What makes you think I’ll scream?”

  “Eternal optimism.”

  Emma grinned at that. “So, can we compromise here? Pair some verbal knowledge with some physical?”

  “I don’t see why not,” Lauren said. “I went to the Sunrise Falls pre-K on Main Street. What else do you want to know?”

  The waiter came and took their order, then gathered up the menus, leaving Emma with nothing to busy her hands. She took a long steadying breath and put a mental barrier between herself and thoughts of sex. There was in fact one specific thing she wanted to know, but it wasn’t the kind of how-ya-doin’ question that dropped easily into conversation. It was a hand grenade dropped into a packed elevator.

  “I need to know what happened with Caroline Bennett. I’m not saying it will change my opinion, but, well, getting naked with someone is a big deal in my world, and I want to know you.”

  Dead silence for thirty seconds and counting. Emma could hear herself breathing. Lauren didn’t look as if she was breathing at all. All expression left her face, like Emma’s words had wiped it clean. She was standing in front of a firing squad with Emma holding a riffle. “Knowing what happened with Caroline doesn’t equate to knowing me.” Lauren’s voice was precisely measured. She didn’t fold her arms, but she might as well have for the wall that flew up between them.

  “That’s true,” Emma said carefully. “But knowing what you’ve been through does. Our histories shape us.”

  “That’s not the same thing as defining us.”

  Emma twisted her hands in the cloth napkin in front of her. “I’m sorry. Forget about it. I shouldn’t have intruded. It’s none of my business.”

  “No,” Lauren said. “It really isn’t.” Then she sighed. “But I can understand why you might be hesitant to have a sexual encounter with the woman who had her face plastered all over the media for seducing the wife of one of the richest men on the West Coast.”

  Emma tried to smile. “One could take that as an endorsement of your skills. You must be very good to have been able to seduce Caroline away from her billions.”

  Lauren didn’t smile back. She sat stony faced and still as a statue. She looked scared, and that had Emma’s heart contorting itself into complicated yoga poses. Whatever had happened back in San Francisco, she didn’t fit the temptress-vixen-seductress mold the media had created for her. Emma wished she hadn’t asked. Lauren wasn’t some skanky girl in a too-tight dress purring dirty words into the ear of a wealthy and powerful woman. She was gorgeous and considerate and an excellent kisser. Not just melt her brain to sticky toffee kisses, either. Nice kisses. Sweet kisses. Kisses that took care and touched her deeper than skin. Emma needed to know what’d happened. Talking was her language. But she didn’t need the answer to be sure she liked Lauren, that she wanted Lauren. Touching was Lauren’s language, and when they’d touched tonight, she’d already told Emma all she’d needed to know.

  Emma reached across the table and wiggled her fingers. “Give me your hand.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m going to hold it while you tell me what really happened. I already know the stuff in the media is bullshit.”

  Lauren stared at her. “How do you know that?”

  “Because you wouldn’t have done what they say you did.” Emma wiggled her fingers again.

  Lauren’s stomach was executing flailing belly flops into a concrete pit, but she put her hand in Emma’s and tried for a smile she wasn’t sure she’d managed to pull off. She didn’t know why she was surprised. She should’ve known that Emma would ask. Should’ve expected it. Been prepared for it. It’s not like she hadn’t spent the last three months anticipating it, and then getting it, from every single person she came into contact with. Well, not every person. People like the Cupcake judged first and didn’t bother with silly inconveniences like questions. Emma hadn’t judged her. Hadn’t asked before tonight. But Lauren should’ve known that was too good to last.

  “I guess you know I was his assistant.” Lauren only realized she was squeezing Emma’s hand once her fingers had started to ache. She let go and Emma promptly picked her hand back up again.

  “Yes. That’s a great job at a company like BennCorp. You must be talented.”

  Lauren shrugged. Talented, sure, but not all that special at the job outlined in her contract. She’d been talented at not letting James Bennett’s authoritarian dictatorship get to her. If you worked for the boss at BennCorp you did things his way, whether or not it was the right way. Lauren got that. Hell, she’d respected that because more often than not James’s way had been the right way. That some people got their panties in a twist when they were told what to do hadn’t been her problem. James was more likely to ask if you’d woken up stupid that day than he was to overlook even the smallest human error. Lauren hadn’t minded. She hadn’t wanted an easy job. She’d wanted to be good, and BennCorp was the best. James Bennett was the captain of his ship. He’d gone through a football team’s worth of assistants before Lauren, and she’d survived Devil-Wears-Prada-style, only for a guy at a media conglomerate, instead of Meryl Streep at a fashion magazine. That was a shame too. She’d have enjoyed working for Meryl.

  “I tried…” Lauren rubbed a hand over her face. Just say it. Stalling isn’t going to make the shit tastier. “His wife, Caroline, took an interest in me. She’d come by the office frequently to see James, unannounced and usually in a snit over some problem only one percenters would care about. I ended up talking to her quite a
bit because my job was to keep the-chill-on-my-champagne-flute-isn’t-cold-enough-darling pestering out of my boss’s hair. That was my job.” Lauren had already said that. She’d just been doing her job. But people tended to miss that part.

  Emma nodded, stroking Lauren’s fingers one at a time with her thumb. She just listened, her eyes never leaving Lauren’s face. For some reason, Emma’s steady eye contact settled her. Emma so rarely looked her dead in the eyes and that she was now meant more than words.

  “Unfortunately, I was good enough that Caroline spent most of her time trying to get around me and not with James. Real people, people whose blood isn’t bluer than an August sky, don’t tend to get noticed by the Carolines of the world. We’re below their attention, glorified servants. But apparently finding a decent assistant is second to gold, and James had said something to her at some point, about me, and how I was good at what I did. He’d made some crack about how well I handled her, and that’d hurt her feelings. I didn’t know that then, of course. Caroline Bennett doesn’t appreciate being handled and doesn’t appreciate that her husband was grateful for this hard-to-define-on-a-résumé skillset. I was being set up right from the start, and I didn’t know it.”

  They said pain faded over time, but for Lauren this memory only grew heavier. Regret and injustice like a barbell dropped on her chest, the weight stacked to breaking point.

  “Another of the seventy-two billion things I didn’t know was that James and Caroline were having marriage problems.” Lauren shrugged. “He’s not an easy man, and it didn’t seem strange that he treated his wife with the same I’m-surrounded-by-idiots attitude that he treated everyone else. I’d only worked for him a year. I hadn’t seen them during the good times.”