Dare Me (Take Me Series Book 2)

by Calista Fox

  Perhaps he was an anchor, too.

  Her fingers grazed the grooves of his abs and the involuntary flexing of his muscles, his automatic reaction to her touch, ignited her nerve endings. She wasn’t sure how far this dangerous attraction was supposed to go. Yet she sensed…it couldn’t be denied any longer.

  Damen murmured, “Understand, Nikki, that if we make love…it won’t be a one-time thing.”

  She blinked.

  He told her, “I won’t let you just walk away afterward. I’ll protect you. I’ll help you any way I can. I’ll get you to Switzerland, if it’s what you still want. Or I’ll take you to D.C. You can meet my niece. You can see the operations at QTango. We have a state-of-the-art med facility. A large psych unit with a diverse group of doctors. You might actually be…fascinated.”

  “With the spy world?” she asked, breathless.

  “It’s filled with people who want to make a difference, who want to effect positive outcomes. Save lives.”

  His expression turned pointed.

  “It’s risky business, Damen,” she said. “A deadly business. I can’t—”

  “You could.” He gave a slight shake of his head and amended, “You might be able to accept it. To help, even.”

  “I help survivors…I help SAR efforts and dedicated teams… I don’t—”

  “What you do is no less dangerous than what I do, Nikki. You’re on the frontline—where anything could happen. Another earthquake, another explosion, another shooting… You’re willing to take those risks.”

  She was about to say it was different, but true fact… She did put herself in harm’s way more often than not because of her professional specialty.

  Damen carefully added, “The ops campus is actually a very safe space. Heavily guarded, monitored.”

  She stared at him a moment, as something clicked in her brain. Then she said, “You want me in D.C. In this safe space.”

  “I told you I’d get you to Switzerland,” he contended. “If that’s what you really want.”

  Nikki drew in a deep breath.

  This conversation was not one she’d anticipated having.

  He was offering an alternative to being on the frontlines in a physical proximity sense. Because she suspected the mental health professionals on the campus were most certainly on the “frontlines” when it came to dealing with agents who’d suffered not only disasters and catastrophes and terrorist attacks, but deaths…killings—by their hands or another’s.

  Just because it was an agent’s job to protect the innocent, or the country—and pull a trigger in order to do so—didn’t mean it was an easy reality to reconcile in their minds. In their souls.

  Nikki would be lying to herself if she didn’t find that yet another level to strive for, to reach, in her career…helping someone suffering from that sort of trauma overcome the chilling end-result, along with the guilt, the torment.

  Because just like the heroes she was drawn to, Nikki possessed a similar trait that made her want to save every tortured spirit she could.

  However… There was a tiny part of her that reminded her she had her own fate, her own destiny to pursue. And that everything Damen was suggesting was impossible to contemplate, let alone accept. The spokesperson for that tiny part of her told her to walk away now.

  It was the smart, sensible thing to do.

  Unravel from all of this before she was so twisted up she’d never break free.

  And that was where the rest of her—the overruling majority—rallied so that a different voice reminded her she’d once had something pretty fucking amazing in her life. Conner. A partnership by way of a marriage and by way of a solid, simpatico work ethic. They were cut from the same cloth, held the same values, chased the same dreams.

  They’d made one hell of a team.

  And she missed that closeness, that unity, that common thread.

  So…what? She was intrigued by whatever it was Damen was hinting at? Her joining his cause?

  “I… I’m confused,” she confessed.

  “Just consider that there are numerous avenues to travel in your effort to help people, Nikki. None with a lesser or a higher calling. But perhaps some that don’t involve you being inside a building that’s about to blow up.”

  “But it’s okay that you’re inside the building that’s about to blow up?” she countered.

  “I didn’t say that. I’m saying, you could do a lot of good in a safer environment.”

  “Physically safer,” she stressed. “Not emotionally safer. Because I’m always fully vested in the people I treat.”

  “I know.” He swallowed hard. Then pressed just a bit more. “I’m just not sure you have to live your life so hazardously.”

  Damen’s gaze didn’t falter. It was still filled with heat and desire, yes. But also determination. Encouragement.

  Tinged with challenge.

  He liked challenging her.

  And God help her, Nikki liked having someone close to her who pushed her beyond her boundaries—and who made her see a bigger picture, a bigger world.

  Damen Castillo’s world was…huge.

  Rife with peril, without doubt.

  Also one in which he played a significant role.

  As his fingers threaded through her damp hair and his head bent a degree farther so his lips brushed hers, Nikki accepted the jolt deep in her core. She accepted the flames along her skin and the quivering of her inner thighs. The scarcity of her breath.

  “Damen—”

  11

  She bit her bottom lip for a moment.

  She wasn’t sure what she truly wanted to say at this precarious moment.

  She realized where he was coming from: The stance of worrying about her personal protection. Perhaps even her sanity.

  Nikki would be a hypocrite if she scoffed at any of that.

  Despite having supported Conner’s daredevil ways—admiring them, even—she’d worried incessantly about him.

  Of course she had.

  Would she have been infinitely more relieved if he’d had some mundane nine-to-five job with zero-percent risk factor? Sure. But she’d already ascertained that wasn’t the sort of man she’d fall in love with—or the sort that would fall in love with her.

  She suddenly gaped at that revelation.

  Then she snapped her jaw shut.

  She wasn’t making the correlation that Damen was in love with her.

  Yet… She said, “You don’t want me living on the edge.”

  “No, I do not.”

  That he didn’t lie or otherwise sugarcoat his motives impressed her.

  “But you’re not willing to step away from the edge,” she said.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “And you wouldn’t want me to ask you to.”

  “No.”

  “That’s selfish,” she contended. “Unfair.”

  “Yes.”

  Her gaze narrowed on him. “I comprehend what you’re saying, what you’re feeling. The inherent fear of losing someone you care for. It can be debilitating. It can destroy you.”

  He gave a slight nod. “I’ve lost agents I’ve worked closely with. It’s mentally destructive. Someone like you…could have helped me through it a bit easier than what I suffered with.”

  “Because I know what it’s like—not just in theory, not just from a medical or clinical standpoint, but from a personal one?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hmm.”

  She gave this further thought. They were skirting the issue of what was developing, personally, between them.

  Possibly. Or perhaps all of this was so intricately entwined that acknowledging their attraction to each other and discussing her job and his job/his trauma and this so-called safe space were actually one and the same—all wrapped around each other.

  She had difficulty dissecting the components at the moment. But offered another truth. Perhaps an invaluable one.

  She said, “I once told Kate that if I’d known Conner�
�s fate, I still wouldn’t have begged him not to rescue all of those people, not to be anywhere near that fire and that canyon.” She gazed intently at Damen. “I lied. To my best friend and therapist. To myself, even.”

  “Of course you lied. You wouldn’t have wanted him facing his own death.”

  “Others would have died, though. So…what kind of a monster does that make me to feel this way?”

  “You’re not a monster, Nikki,” he said with conviction as his eyes darkened. “You’re human. You loved him and you didn’t want anything to happen to him. Naturally, you would have been compelled to use that knowledge to try to save his life.”

  Tears stung her eyes. “I don’t want to be held hostage by my fear of losing someone else. But I still feel it so strongly.”

  “So do I.”

  They continued to gaze at each other. Nikki got where he was coming from.

  It put them at an impasse and yet…

  Her fingers on his stomach eased upward, to his pecs.

  Yes, it’d been forever since she’d kissed a man—and forever since she’d touched one like this. Intimately.

  Her palm flattened over his chest. His jaw tightened.

  She said, “I do things to you.”

  “More than you can possibly know.”

  “You want to tell me about it.”

  “I want to show you,” he corrected her.

  Nikki sucked in a sliver of air.

  Damen said, “I’ve never wanted a woman the way I want you…as much as I want you. From the very beginning, Nikki.”

  His arm slipped around her waist. He tugged her closer to him, so that she had to shift her hand, slide it around to his back. His heavily muscled back.

  “I’m not going to tell you twice—” he started.

  “I heard you loud and clear the first time,” she said. “But you can’t expect me to make a decision right this very second. I don’t know if I can make a decision during all of this…insanity we’ve just experienced—are still experiencing. Please understand that. And don’t put that expectation, that ultimatum on me. Not yet.” She pressed her lips to his, briefly. Then murmured, “Make another compromise, Damen. For me. Make love to me…but don’t ask for an answer immediately following.”

  His teeth ground for several suspended seconds. Nikki had no idea whether he’d yield this time.

  But then his mouth crashed over hers in a hungry, demanding kiss…and Nikki forgot all about expectations and ultimatums.

  She caved to the thrill of being in his strong arms, of losing herself in his deep, hot, searing kiss.

  His tongue delved deep, twisting and tangling with hers.

  His hand at her waist gave a quick, forceful yank at the sash there and her robe fell open. He dragged the material away.

  Not breaking the kiss, he hauled her body up against his and it was hotter than hell—his skin, his muscles, his aggressive move. All of it lit her up.

  He lifted her slightly off her feet and walked them toward the sofa, maneuvering them carefully. He sank onto the cushion and ripped the towel from his hips as she straddled his lap. Her slick folds glided along his hard shaft as she rocked against him.

  Damen groaned into her mouth and it excited her even more.

  His hands skated up to her breasts and he palmed them, massaging with an insistent pressure that was so damn titillating, it was a wonder she didn’t come immediately. Everything he was doing to her was enough to send her straight to the precipice. Especially after existing years without this sort of physical contact.

  But she held on. To her orgasm and to him. Her hands clutched his bulging biceps as his thumbs whisked over her nipples, pebbling them tight, making them tingle.

  When she finally broke the kiss to suck in a gulp of air, she was on fire.

  “Jesus,” she said on a sharp whimper. “You go straight for the gold medal, don’t you?”

  His grin was a sexy, though notably strained, one. “This is what you do to me.”

  12

  “By all means,” she told him, her voice low and raspy, “have at it.”

  “Nikki…”

  Her gaze locked with his. “Fuck me, Damen. I haven’t been with a man since Conner. I haven’t felt this rush of heat, this flood of desire, this…intense need. Do something about it. Please,” she pleaded.

  His hands returned to her hips. He raised her off his lap just enough for him to better position himself…then lowered her slowly down onto him. Inch by thick, glorious inch.

  “Oh, my God,” she breathed. “Oh…”

  He filled her, stretched her, sent shockwaves through her.

  “Fuck, Nikki,” he all-but growled. “You feel…” He pulled in a harsh breath. “So damn good.”

  Her arms circled his neck just as he claimed her mouth again in another scorching kiss. He guided her hips into a slow, sensuous rhythm as he thrust up into her. She was wet and desperately wanting him. Needing him…

  When he eventually dragged his mouth from hers, his lips trailed down her neck to her collarbone. Then lower still, to her breasts. His tongue flitted against a taut peak and she gasped. Then he drew the tight bead into his mouth and sucked…deep.

  “Oh, God!” She felt the sensations blossom within her, but fought the imminent climax, clung to how amazing it was to have this man stroking just the right spot, with the precise tempo and pressure. She wasn’t ready to give into it just yet.

  He was assertive and masterful.

  So perfect.

  “Right there, Damen. That’s it…”

  She combed her hands through his hair, her fingers curling around the silky strands as his mouth pleasured her other nipple.

  “I’m so close,” she whispered. “I’m trying so hard not to be.”

  “Don’t hold back,” he insisted. “Let me make you come, Nikki. I need to make you come.”

  His hands slipped to her ass and he palmed her cheeks, holding her in place. He lifted her an inch or so off him so he could pump into her.

  “Oh, God, yes… Damen… Like that. Oh, my God… Just like that.”

  He thrust into her, steadily, deeper, pushing her right to the brink.

  “Christ, I am so fucking hot for you,” he ground out. “You are so damn beautiful. So sexy. So amazingly tight and wet and… Ah, fuck, Nikki.”

  She felt the ripples of pleasure cascade between them.

  His hands on her ass gripped her more firmly.

  She rolled her hips, keeping pace and rhythm with him.

  All the while, they stared into each other’s eyes.

  Lost themselves completely.

  “Oh, God, Damen,” she gasped. “Oh. God!” she cried as everything within her erupted and the red-hot sensations consumed her.

  “Nikki.” He swore under his breath. Then his body convulsed and his cock surged and pulsated inside her as he came, flooding her pussy with his hot seed.

  Branding her.

  Making her his.

  For now.

  Damen had no desire to move.

  He was buried deep inside Nikki, her tight pussy still holding him in a vise grip, clutching him as though she had no intention of letting him go. Ever.

  And that was fucking fine by him.

  His hands skimmed up her bare back. She’d collapsed against him and her head rested on his shoulder, her flushed cheek pressed to his skin, her warm breath teased his neck. Her breasts were melded to his chest and one of her hands splayed over his abs.

  Her breathing was shallow, interspersed with a soft moan every now and then.

  He stroked her hair and the moans turned into a delicate purring.

  He’d chuckle if he had the energy.

  Rather, he simply remained sprawled on the sofa, with her on top of him.

  He was exhausted from his mission, from his injuries, from his recovery. From battling Nikki and feeling like a monumental ass that he had to confiscate her personal property. From fighting his feelings for her, his attraction to her.
From fearing for her safety.

  They weren’t in the clear, though. And that was why he wanted her in D.C.

  Well, that…and because he suspected if she saw their operation, she’d be intrigued.

  Yes, it really was selfish on his part to want to introduce her to Mads and the ops family. To seduce her with the impressive facilities so that perhaps she’d see what good she could do there with the agents…and want to stay. Not constantly jet off to disaster zones.

  He couldn’t say for sure how it’d happened, given all the ups and downs and complications and the fuck yous she’d lobbed his way, but… Damen had fallen.

  For the first time in his life…he was in love.

  And he didn’t want to lose Nikki Balentine-Kane.

  For any reason.

  Which meant…he actually was fucked.

  Because Nikki was unpredictable. Untamable.

  All perfectly fine by him. Damen had no wish to flex his muscles with her, in the figurative manner. He loved how strong and independent and resourceful she was.

  Then again…he had presented her with his desire to turn what was blossoming between them into something…permanent.

  Yes, it was a crazy notion given all they’d been through—all they were still going through.

  Damen knew, however, that what he felt was real and substantial. Something he’d never experienced before.

  And he wasn’t inclined to give up it.

  Now, to convince Nikki…

  He let out a low groan.

  He would concede that he was a man who went after what he wanted. Typically, in his mind, no challenge was too great. Nikki might be the exception.

  As her fingers on his stomach absently drew lazy circles and her lips grazed his neck, Damen considered this certainly was one more thing he was willing to fight for. He couldn’t remember holding a woman in his arms, after having sex with her, and wanting to lay still with her for a small eternity. Rather than counting the minutes before it was polite to extract himself, be on his way and get back to his work.

  With Nikki, he was locked in the moment. Sensed she was, too.

  So perhaps there was hope for them, after all?