Dare Me (Take Me Series Book 2)

by Calista Fox

  Replies began to pour in, since the majority of her contacts were in international time zones, and she worked the logistics while serving as liaison between the entities. And ended up with six spare bodies on-board for helping out with the massive train wreck.

  Nikki felt a twinge a disappointment she wouldn’t be onsite to assist them.

  But there was evidently something on a grander scale for her to address. A couple of things, she realized as the Town Car pulled up in front of tall, decorative black wrought-iron gates on a large estate. Beside her, Damen punched numbers into an app on his phone. The gates gradually swung open in an inward fashion and they passed through.

  The grounds were covered with a light blanket of snow. There were various species of trees dotting the premises, including majestic pines and clusters of dormant cherry blossoms that likely looked striking against the rich green foliage during the warmer months.

  The long driveway wound toward a towering mansion and Nikki slid a glance Damen’s way. “The spy business pays well, I see.”

  “Indeed, it does. There’s family money, too.”

  “You mentioned your mother watches your niece while you’re…indisposed. What about your father?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” she sincerely said.

  “Thank you. He died with my brother and sister-in-law in an earthquake.”

  She sucked in a breath. “That’s horrific.”

  “Yes.” His jaw tightened.

  Something tickled the back of Nikki’s brain. She said, “When you told me that a few agents you were close to passed away… You weren’t indirectly referring to your family members, were you?”

  “No,” he said with a shake of his head and a half-smile. “They weren’t exactly spy material. Better suited for the business arena. Though, they were all weekend warriors. If they weren’t deep-sea fishing, they were hiking or biking, skydiving, kayaking, things of that nature. And traveling. They’d racked up more than their fair share of frequent flier miles.”

  “Losing them had to have been—”

  “Yes,” he quietly interjected. “And that’s the most we’re discussing on the subject.”

  Painful was what she was going to say. The flicker of agony in his blue eyes told Nikki to step off for the moment.

  She knew that expression all too well, had seen it too many times in her own mirror. Years ago, yes. It’d softened recently. As was typical when the raw edges dulled around the emotions of someone who’d suffered a travesty such as this. They might not smooth out completely—ever—but oftentimes they were less jagged, less dangerous to the heart and soul.

  Damen’s pain still bordered on dangerous. She sensed it as much as she saw it in his eyes.

  And maybe that was another visceral element that drew them to each other. Bonded them.

  She contemplated this as the car pulled under the fancy porte-cochere, lit by an enormous, glass-enclosed lantern hanging overhead that was absolutely gorgeous and which cast a golden glow over the stunning brick-inlaid drive and the steps leading up to the grandiose, double-doored entrance that featured intricate, crystal-cut insets in the wooden frames.

  “Already, I’m impressed,” she murmured.

  “You hail from New York society—the crème de la crème, I understand. This shouldn’t be the least out of the ordinary for you.”

  “Did you have it built—designed it yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  She snickered at him. “Then believe me, I’m impressed. One of the reasons I left Manhattan and bought property on Long Island was so that I could have something built for me that was different, all my own, not a space anyone else had existed in.”

  His lashes lowered, as did his voice. “Not even Conner?”

  “Not that place. No.”

  Damen sat back for a moment, staring at the entrance of his house.

  Then he said, “This is my own sanctuary. My mother lives here now, after the deaths. As does Madelena. But…” He licked his bottom lip, contemplatively, then slid his gaze to Nikki. “No other woman has lived here, let alone spent the night here.”

  His expression turned pointed.

  Nikki read it loud and clear, understanding the significance he silently conveyed.

  She lost her breath.

  16

  The driver opened the car door and Damen stepped out. He turned back to Nikki and gave her his hand.

  She hesitated.

  He fought a scowl. Though there was no mistaking the edge to his voice as he said, “If you’d prefer a hotel… Fine. But keep in mind, I’ll have to be there as well. To keep you safe. And…because I still have your computer.”

  She let out a rush of air. Took his hand and gracefully slipped from the car as the driver collected their luggage and set it on the porch, where a butler discreetly whisked it inside.

  While Damen and Nikki remained under the porte-cochere.

  “It’s not that I don’t want to see your home, Damen.”

  “Then what is it, Nikki?” he inquired with a crooked brow.

  “This is personal,” she softly said. “It’s your home.”

  His head bent to hers and he asked in an equally low tone, “And what we did in that hotel suite in New York—the things we said to each other… That wasn’t personal?”

  She glared up at him.

  He stared back at her.

  Challenging her.

  Her teeth ground for a moment.

  His brow crooked further.

  “This is your estate. Where your family now lives. This goes beyond what we did—what we said—in New York.”

  “You know, I’d never take you as one to cling to avoidance, Doc. You’re very much a grab the bull by the horns kind of woman. And you sure as hell don’t cower in any corners when faced with adversity. So, why does this unnerve you?”

  She waited for the driver to slip behind the wheel and pull away before she asked, “Whose bed am I going to be sleeping in tonight, Damen?”

  He felt a surge of testosterone over that query. “Mine, naturally.” He couldn’t stop himself from saying those words. Even though he sensed that was the wrong answer.

  Sure enough, she told him, “I haven’t slept in another man’s bed. Only one man’s bed.”

  “And you feel as though you’re betraying that one man, yes?”

  “Yes. Sort of,” she added. Then sighed. “Rationally, no, of course I’m not.”

  “Emotionally, though?”

  She gazed up at him again, this time with a more imploring look in her gorgeous green eyes. “When you’ve spent so long not feeling anything toward any other man, romantically, you wonder when it’s okay to allow yourself to start feeling something.”

  “Romantically,” he carefully added.

  “Yes.”

  “Hmm. Well. Why don’t we just call this a slumber party, and you and Mads can have a pillow fight in the morning over pancakes?”

  She smirked at him for trying to alleviate the tension with a dose of humor. But the smirk quickly faded. “We’d both know better.”

  “Of course we would,” he said.

  “Fine.” She inhaled deeply. Exhaled slowly. Then added, “I’m too exhausted to continue arguing. And I’m not letting my laptop out of my sight. And… I’d actually be able to sleep if you were next to me. Your intuition and reflexes are astounding. You didn’t waste a second when that tracking device went off—or when you saw Garcia.”

  “Those are my notables?” he quipped.

  She stared up at him again and fluttered her long, sooty lashes. “One heart palpitation at a time, big guy.”

  He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and led her up the steps. The doors swept open at their approach and Damen introduced her to Lamont, the night butler.

  “Please have Dr. Kane’s luggage delivered to my room,” Damen instructed. Then asked, “Everyone’s asleep?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s been quiet.”

&
nbsp; “Very good.” Damen led her up the curving staircase to the second floor mezzanine. “I’ll give you the grand tour tomorrow. In the meantime, my suite is at the end of this hallway. Madelena’s and my mother’s rooms are in the opposite wing. The breakfast buffet will be set at seven and pancake service beings at nine, since Mads is on winter break and likes to sleep in.”

  “Joke all you want, but those pancakes are sounding divine right now. I can’t remember the last time I ate. It certainly wasn’t on the plane.”

  “I can have the chef prep an entire platter and send it up.”

  Nikki whistled under her breath. “Why would you ever stay at a hotel?”

  “Occupational requirement,” he merely said.

  “Right. So true.”

  They reached his suite and he opened one of the mammoth doors for her to pass through. She drew up short, taking in the vast, opulent space, with two fireplaces that had low blazes in the hearth, because Damen had alerted Lamont to their impending arrival when they’d changed vehicles in New Jersey.

  “Wow,” Nikki said. “A family of eight could live quite comfortably in here.”

  He chuckled.

  One of the night staff arrived with all of the bags. “Would you like me to unpack, Mr. Castillo?”

  “No, thank you, John. We’ll take care of it.”

  “Very good. Anything else you require?”

  His gaze drifted to Nikki. Who said, “You still have my laptop strapped to you. That’s all I care about.”

  The butler’s assistant didn’t get it, so Damen said, “No worries. We’re fine, thank you. That’ll be all.”

  The wet bar was always stocked, along with a mini-fridge. Lamont would have seen to it that there was fresh ice and sparkling and still water at the ready. And Damen had requested he draw a bath when they were just a few minutes out, so he directed Nikki to the master en suite.

  “Jesus, Damen,” she said on a gasp as she entered that room. “The Plaza Hotel called. They’d like their entire residential floor back.”

  He snickered. “If you want a bath, take a bath. If you want to fall into bed and make love, we’ll make love. If you just want to sleep, we’ll sleep.”

  Over her shoulder, she asked, “What is the point of all this space?”

  “I like to spread out.”

  “How often are you here?” she countered. “To spread out?”

  “Every now and then. Mads goes to a private boarding school. My mother spends the majority of her time volunteering or in group therapy.”

  He crossed to where she stood and asked, “By the way, how are you coping with being shot at?”

  17

  The question took her aback.

  Or, rather, the fact that Damen had posed it was what caught her off guard.

  “You don’t get to psychoanalyze me,” she said.

  “I’m not psychoanalyzing you. I’m asking a question. We were under attack. Are you all right?”

  “I don’t like hotel stairwells,” she reiterated, squaring her shoulders. “I like guns pointed in my direction even less. And I’m certainly not a fan of bullets flying dangerously close to my body. And other peoples’ bodies.”

  “Duly noted,” he commented. “That doesn’t really answer my question, though. Are you all right?” he repeated.

  Nikki turned and faced him. She said, “I’m trained to work in disaster zones, to be prepared for any inevitability.”

  “Except a loaded gun at your head, yes?”

  They stared at each other.

  She took a moment to consider what she wanted to say on the subject. Eventually, she told him, “In training, they use a lot of scare-tactics. They force you into impossible-to-escape situations and terrify you so much, you literally want to wet your pants. In the back of your mind, however… You know that if they pulled the trigger, they’d be shooting blanks.”

  “Not so in my world,” he quietly said.

  “Definitely not so in your world.”

  His hand cupped the side of her face. “I’m sorry you were frightened.”

  “I was,” she confessed. And swallowed down a lump of emotion.

  “Nik—”

  “Yet… I wasn’t locked in that fear, thinking all was lost. Damen,” she said as she stared intently at him. “I trusted you. I knew from the second that device went off to the moment we exchanged cars and came here that I was in very, very capable hands. Your hands.”

  “I’m not playing a game here,” he said, the raw intensity exuding from him.

  “Neither am I.”

  “Good.” His hand fell away and he took a step back. “Now, what’s your pleasure?”

  She grinned, despite the razory tone they’d both taken during their crucial conversation.

  “I think…another bath. I’m a little sweaty from nerves and could use the relaxing scent, which I can already smell. It’s heavenly.”

  “You want music? Classical, jazz, hip-hip?”

  With a soft laugh, she said, “Definitely not hip-hop. I need to wind down. I’m pretty sure I’m cresting hypertension at the moment.”

  “Not good,” he said with noted concern.

  “I just need to soak for a few minutes.” She spared a glance over her shoulder at the enormous tub, filled to the brim with bubbles. Turning back to Damen, she ventured, “Care to join me?”

  He couldn’t resist, of course.

  Damen toes off his shoes. Peeled off his sweater, jeans, briefs, socks. Stripping down in front of Nikki got the adrenaline pumping through him and made him impossibly hard.

  Slowly undressing Nikki tightened his groin further.

  They slipped into the warm water, Damen resting against one high-sloping end of the tub and Nikki settling between his parted legs, her back pressed to his chest.

  Neither one of them spoke.

  She’d piled her gorgeous dark-auburn hair on top of her head and secured it with a clip. The strands were richly scented, arousing his senses more so than the light aromatherapy of the bath.

  His lips grazed her temple.

  Her body relaxed, the tension within her dissipating.

  He slid his hands over her forearms and up to her biceps, clasping them gently, massaging the lightly toned muscles. Then his hands glided up to her shoulders and he rubbed them with a little more pressure.

  Nikki all-but purred under his touch. Her head fell back against his shoulder. He could see her eyelids closed.

  She took deep, calming breaths as his hands continued to work her knots and he left feathery kisses against her cheek and neck.

  She finally broke the silence, quietly asking, “Do you really trust Garcia?”

  He pulled in a long breath. Let it out slowly. He rested the back of his head against the thick towel draped along the rising ledge of the tub.

  “Damen?”

  “Garcia had the chance to fuck us over. To hand your laptop to terrorists—and attempt to eliminate you in the process.”

  He felt the shiver run through her.

  “I said attempt,” he whispered, his arms now slipping around Nikki’s waist.

  “Right. What about those things she said about suspecting you’d find me, whether you could track me or not with the device? She knew you’d come looking for me? Whether I had the intel or not?”

  Damen groaned.

  Nikki said, in a lighter tone, “You can just tell me that you weren’t ready to let me out of your sight.”

  He didn’t hesitate to counter with, “You clearly weren’t thrilled to let me out of yours, either. You tore through an entire hospital, searching for me.”

  She didn’t deny it, saying, “Your disappearance made no sense. Above and beyond that…”

  “Yes?” he feigned a coy tone as he prompted her.

  “I just wanted to know what had happened to you, Damen. And to all the staff who’d attended to you.” She sat up, shifted, faced him and asked point-blank, “Do you really think Garcia’s reasoning is legit?”

>   He eyed her curiously. “You have cause to doubt it? To doubt her?”

  This wasn’t a challenge—he wanted to know her thoughts on this.

  She said, “It all makes sense, in that she knew we were both trying to reconnect—she was privy to how we interacted, even if mostly one-sided, while we were at that hospital.”

  “And yet…?” he queried.

  “I don’t have an and yet.”

  “Meaning you don’t want to trust anyone.”

  “I was shot at tonight,” she reminded him.

  “As though I could ever forget,” he asserted.

  Nikki raised her hand from the bubbles and glided her fingers along his throat. “I trust you, Damen.”

  His gaze narrowed on her. “But…?”

  Her lips swept over his. “I once followed this directive to strike the word but from my vocabulary, because someone claimed once you said that word, your audience ‘wouldn’t hear’ anything you said before it. Which isn’t totally accurate, because, if they’re actually listening to you, they’ve heard every word before the but.”

  “Is there a point to this, Doc?” he asked with a quirked brow.

  “Yes. I said I trust you, Damen.” She stared deep into his eyes. “Not ‘I trusted you in my time of need.’ I’ve outright declared I trust you. Then and now.”

  “For which I’m grateful.” Still, he eyed her quizzically.

  “I don’t know how this is going to end,” she said. “And maybe that’s okay, because in all my training, in my profession, I never know the end result. I know the desired result. That’s what I strive for.”

  “And in this instance,” he intensely inquired, “what’s the desired result, Nik?”

  18

  “I don’t actually know,” she confessed. And tried not to choke on a lump of emotion.

  Damen groaned. “Try to pick a side, Nik.”

  Her fingers skimmed over his jaw. “That’s a no-brainer.”

  “Yeah? Maybe I need to hear it.”

  Her mouth pressed to his.

  Naturally, he took the kiss a step further, deepening it. Until she was breathless.

  Against his lips, she murmured, “Please understand, I’m battling a lot of unexpected reactions here, Damen.”