Defying the Billionaire's Command

by Michelle Conder

  ‘Oh, thank you, Doctor.’ The mother smiled, but it wasn’t at her. It was at Dare. No doubt she was still thinking about those broad shoulders and that scruff he hadn’t bothered to shave off his horrible face that morning.

  Disgusted with herself, Carly stood up and brushed herself off before finally looking at him, unconsciously setting her chin at a challenging angle. This wasn’t the moment of victory she had anticipated and she knew Dare wasn’t a stupid man. He’d guess straight away that his grandfather was ill.

  ‘So you’re a doctor?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said as if it were of no importance at all.

  He scowled. ‘And pretty pleased about it, by the look of you?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’ Carly retorted, frowning into his angry face. ‘I worked hard for my degree.’

  His mouth tightened. ‘I don’t care if you got it from a paper bag.’ He stared at her hard. ‘What I want to know is whether you’re tired of working so hard, or if the old man is sick and you’re his attending physician.’ His blue gaze pierced hers. ‘Not that I’ve met too many doctors who live in.’

  Okay, so maybe he wasn’t that smart, Carly fumed, incensed that he was so determined to think ill of her.

  ‘Unbelievable.’ She shook her head. ‘You have no shame, do you?’

  ‘Not much. Which is it?’

  ‘None of your business.’ She stalked away from him but of course he followed.

  ‘Are you saying that my grandfather’s welfare is none of my business?’ he asked silkily.

  ‘I’m saying—’ Carly stopped and whirled on him ‘—go take a hike. Off a high cliff preferably.’

  Dare grabbed hold of her arm as she turned to walk off and swung her around to face him. ‘What is your problem, lady?’

  ‘I’m looking at it.’

  ‘If you would just apply some logic—would you stand still? I’m the one who has a right to be angry here, not you.’

  Carly slapped her hands on her hips. ‘Of course you do,’ Carly soothed with all the ice from the polar cap. ‘And I suppose I should be the grateful little maiden on my knees apologising for making you feel that way?’

  The air between them pulled taut.

  Dare let out a slow breath. Talking to this woman was like trying to pull up weeds with a pair of tweezers. ‘If you’re on the straight and narrow, why all the cloak-and-dagger stuff?’

  Aware of the small crowd still milling around, Carly kept her voice low. ‘As far as I’m concerned there is no cloak-and-dagger stuff. There’s you jumping up and down drawing conclusions that belong in a Picasso painting and me caught in the crossfire.’

  ‘Little Miss Innocent, is that it?’ His lips twisted. ‘Or should I say, Dr Innocent?’

  If she had been expecting an apology—and she had been—she was sorely disappointed. ‘Tell me, Mr James, do you have a low opinion of every woman you meet or is it just me?’

  ‘I have a healthy disrespect for lying,’ he ground out.

  ‘I haven’t lied to you.’

  ‘You haven’t been honest either.’

  ‘Maybe it’s just that you’re so quick to pass judgment on everyone else’s motives you don’t ask the right questions.’

  ‘If you think being a doctor somehow elevates you above gold-digger status, sweetheart, I have to tell you I’ve come across a lot of educated women who look at a rich man with dollar signs in their eyes.’

  ‘Maybe women look at you that way because it’s the only positive thing about you!’ Carly turned and strode towards the path that led back to Rothmeyer House, disconcerted when he easily kept pace with her. ‘I, on the other hand, have more sense.’

  ‘Is that right?’

  ‘Yes, that is right. But what’s your excuse? Has a woman broken your heart in the past? Is that why you’re being so horrible to me?’

  ‘No woman has ever broken my heart.’

  ‘Because you don’t have one?’ she asked sweetly.

  Dare called for patience. ‘Because no woman has ever gotten close enough.’

  Her brow rose in surprise. ‘And never will, by your tone.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘So you really have no excuse for making my life hell.’

  ‘I have plenty.’ Mainly that he wasn’t going to be taken in by a sharp-tongued little witch only to find out later that he’d been played for a fool.

  Still... He took a deep breath watching her disappear along the narrow walking path and around the first bend. He wasn’t an unreasonable man. At least he never had been before. He frowned. He couldn’t seem to get his thoughts straight where she was concerned and that temper of hers didn’t help at all.

  Scowling, he set off after her, his long strides eating up the distance to catch her up. If she were a new start-up he was interested in, he mused, he’d gather the facts first and then follow his instincts.

  ‘Hold up,’ he called when her bright hair came into view, his lips flat-lining when she ignored him. Oh, she was good at that. She’d pretty much pretended he hadn’t existed all through lunch.

  ‘I said hold up,’ he growled, grabbing her elbow.

  ‘And I said take a hike off a high cliff,’ she panted, her eyes the colour of an incoming storm. ‘But we don’t always get what we want, do we?’

  ‘Would you just listen for once? I want to clear this up and move on.’

  She wrenched her arm out of his hold and moved away from him. ‘This ought to be good.’

  A muscle flexed in his jaw and he let out a slow breath. If she only knew how much he wanted to wrap his fingers around her slender throat and squeeze when she looked at him like that, she’d never do it again.

  ‘So let me see if I’ve got this right,’ he said calmly. ‘You’re saying there’s absolutely nothing personal between you and my grandfather?’

  He waited a beat, pleased with the reasonableness of his tone, when she started laughing.

  ‘Oh, brother!’ She tossed her hands up in the air as if he were a delinquent and right now he felt like one. This woman took his logical brain and turned it into a pretzel.

  ‘You are unbelievable,’ she stormed on. ‘You can’t even see what’s right in front of your face.’

  He took a step towards her, gratified when she involuntarily stepped back.

  Oh, yes, my little beauty, you should be afraid if I find out this is all an act.

  ‘I can see very clearly.’

  Something in his tone alerted all Carly’s feminine instincts that she was standing on rocky ground with a tornado bearing down fast. ‘Really?’ She felt suddenly breathless. ‘And what do you see?’

  Dammit. Carly knew her words were a challenge, one she hadn’t meant to issue, and his slow smile said he knew it.

  ‘Look, Mr James—’

  ‘I am looking, Miss—sorry—Dr Evans, and I see something I like very much.’ He took another step towards her, his eyes falling to the lips she’d just moistened. ‘But I’m not telling you anything you don’t know, am I? You know how desirable you are. How beautiful.’

  The words were harsh, spoken more as an insult, but Carly felt her breathing quicken with pleasure at hearing them. A bird called out from somewhere high in the treetops; another answered. Instinct told her to run, while something much stronger kept her immobile.

  Carly shook her head as Dare stalked towards her like a slow-moving lion whose prey was cornered.

  ‘No...’ A low-hanging branch brushed the back of her head and she swung around to move it. Before she could turn back Dare plastered his larger body along her back, his arms banded around her middle like a steel trap.

  ‘Oh, yes.’ His breath was hot against her neck and Carly’s knees went weak. ‘Your scent drives me crazy,’ he growled, his mouth opening over the skin
of her neck, his teeth biting down softly. Carly moaned, the back of her head hitting his shoulder.

  His hands rose from her stomach to cup her breasts and a need rose up in Carly like never before. The urge to rub her bottom against him was overwhelming. It was like a fire in her blood, burning her up from the inside out.

  Don’t do it, don’t—

  Dare groaned deep in his throat. ‘Do that again,’ he ordered hungrily. A thrill raced through Carly at the naked need in his voice and she was powerless to resist, gasping with pleasure when he plumped her breasts in his hands and squeezed.

  ‘Turn your head, Carly,’ he growled against her ear, his fingers circling ever closer to the tight tips of her breasts. ‘Kiss me.’

  His voice was gruff and mindlessly Carly reached back, curling one of her arms behind her to cup his head and bring his mouth to hers. When their lips met she whimpered and he rewarded her by tweaking her nipples firmly through her clothing.

  If Carly had ever felt anything so exquisite before she couldn’t remember it. His mouth, those masterful fingers, that hard body covering hers from behind... Time ceased to exist and everything along with it.

  Dare whispered her name and turned her in his arms.

  Drugged.

  He felt drugged as her tongue stroked along his, her mouth wide in an invitation he didn’t need to receive twice. Self-control was a distant memory as Dare crushed her lush breasts against his chest. He felt a momentary relief at the contact but then it wasn’t enough and he powered her back against the trunk of the hundred-year-old oak.

  Her fingers delved into his hair to hold him closer and his hands pushed beneath her T-shirt, shoving her bra higher so that she was completely exposed to him. He took his fill of those perfect orbs and pink-tipped nipples before lowering his head to take one into his mouth. Her taste, the texture of her skin was like ambrosia and he suckled her deeply, his mouth shifting between first one and then the other.

  She gripped him tighter, her nails raking his shirt, her keening cries filling the air and he knew she would be wet for him. He knew that all he had to do was lower her to the ground, tug down her zipper and part her legs and she’d be his. All his.

  And he nearly did exactly that before a modicum of sanity brought him back to where they were. On a public pathway in the middle of Rothmeyer Forest. Dare wrenched his mouth from her breasts, his eyes grim as they met glazed green ones. ‘I’m not going to take you on the forest floor.’

  Take her on the forest floor? Carly blinked a couple of times as if she’d just come out of a movie theatre in the middle of the day. Good God, she’d gone crazy!

  She couldn’t believe the way she’d opened her mouth wide and stroked her tongue along his, the way she’d wanted to strip the clothes from his body and touch him everywhere.

  Realising that her bra was digging into her underarms, Carly yanked it back into place and straightened her T-shirt. ‘Believe me, I don’t want you to take me anywhere. I don’t want you to touch me again. Ever!’

  His eyes fell to her aroused breasts, her nipples like hard little diamonds against her clothes. ‘I told you I don’t like liars.’

  ‘I’m not lying, I’m—’ She broke off as his hand reached out and covered her breast, his gaze defying her to resist him. And she wanted to, she wanted to be completely unaffected by his touch, but she could feel the tension in her shoulders as she battled to stop her body from arching into his.

  ‘If you’d been wearing a skirt you’d already be mine and you know it,’ he said, his voice hoarse with unmet need.

  ‘I would have stopped you before then,’ Carly said with more bravado than she felt, flicking his hand from her breast.

  ‘Would you?’

  Dare looked at her mouth, swollen from where he’d ravished it, her cheeks still pink with a passion he’d invoked. She was beautiful. Perhaps the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

  He rubbed at his chest. Even now the desire to take her in his arms was so strong he had to turn his back on her to prevent himself from doing it again.

  How did he just switch it on and off? Carly wondered, still trembling from the force of the emotions he created in her. If he had a secret she wanted to know what it was because she’d use it to turn her reaction to him off permanently. It was almost as if her brain cells ceased to function when he reached for her.

  ‘You enjoyed that, didn’t you?’ she accused hotly. ‘Humiliating me like that.’

  His heavy-lidded gaze met hers. ‘On the contrary, I thought I was pleasuring you.’

  Smug, condescending...

  ‘I won’t deny that you know what to do with your hands.’ Her eyes dropped to his lips. ‘Your mouth.’ She raised her chin. ‘But you need to know that there is nothing that would induce me to sleep with a man like you.’

  A muscle ticked in his jaw. ‘And what kind of man is that?’

  ‘A rude, condescending player who takes what he wants and damn the consequences.’

  Dare’s brows rose. ‘A player?’

  ‘I looked you up online last night,’ she said, tossing her hair back over her shoulder. ‘And you’ve had more women than I’ve had patients!’

  He cocked a slow grin. ‘Considering I don’t know how many patients you’ve had I can’t really comment, but I am flattered you took the time to look me up.’

  ‘Don’t be,’ she shot back. ‘I was only interested in what kind of man would treat his own grandfather so callously. And now I know. A horrible one!’

  It wasn’t quite the put-down she’d been reaching for but Carly was too incensed to care. Straightening her spine she marched away from him, determined never to see him again.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘DID YOU HAVE a nice walk, darling?’ His mother smiled at Dare as he found her alone in a small, feminine sunroom at the back of the house. ‘You know, I really liked Carly. She seems like an intelligent woman and so attractive, don’t you think?’

  It wasn’t difficult to hear the hope in his mother’s voice but he hadn’t sought her out so she could wax lyrical about the most frustrating woman he had ever met. ‘Don’t matchmake, Mother, you know I don’t like it.’ And it was something she had tried more than once before. ‘Mark has the car ready to leave when you are.’

  ‘I was just expressing my opinion, Dare. No need to bite my head off.’ She sniffed as if he had done her a great injury. ‘I can’t help it if Carly seemed entirely down to earth and...unpretentious. Normal, even.’

  ‘Unlike the women I usually date.’

  ‘Do you call it dating?’ she asked innocently. ‘I thought you young people called it hooking up when it only lasted a period of hours.’

  Dare scowled. ‘If you wanted grandchildren you should have remarried yourself and had more kids.’ He felt like a jerk as soon as he saw her hurt face. He, more than anyone else, knew why she had never risked a relationship again. ‘I’m sorry.’ He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. ‘That was uncalled for. But I don’t want to talk about Carly. I want to know what happened with Benson after we left.’

  She sighed. ‘Why don’t you come sit down? This used to be one of my favourite rooms when I was a child.’

  By the looks of it, his mother had just finished a cup of tea. God, how he hated tea. ‘Sorry. Again. I’m a little...’ He raked a hand through his hair and glanced around at the cushioned window seats and low side tables. ‘How is it being back here?’

  ‘Lovely, actually. In some ways it’s almost as if I’m nineteen again. But you’re a little what?’

  Her parental radar had evidently picked up on his slight hesitation before but there was no way he was going to tell her that he was a little sexually frustrated. ‘Nothing.’ He smiled encouragingly. ‘So what does Benson want?’

  She looked as if she wanted to question
him more but then she sighed. ‘To reconnect. To get to know you. He’s a big admirer of yours.’

  Dare’s eyes narrowed. ‘Already?’

  ‘Yes. He looked you up online.’

  He was being checked up on a lot, it seemed. Had Carly and his grandfather looked into his past while in bed together? And why was he back to thinking about that when she’d denied sleeping with him?

  No, actually, she had denied loving him—she had neatly avoided the whole topic of how deep her involvement with him was and Dare hadn’t even noticed.

  He frowned. ‘That’s it? That’s all he said?’

  ‘Well, now that you mention it he did ask if I would like to stay on for a few days.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said yes.’

  And she had a determined glint in her eye that said she wouldn’t be swayed. Dare sighed. ‘I need to be in the office Monday morning. I can’t—’

  ‘I’m not asking you to stay with me, darling, I know how busy you are. But once the two of us started really talking we realised that there’s too much to be said in one day.’

  Dare’s frown deepened. He needed to talk to Benson himself and the sooner, the better.

  ‘Dare, where are you going?’

  ‘To see Benson.’

  His mother sighed. ‘Dare, be nice.’

  He smiled at her. ‘I’m always nice, Ma, you know that.’

  * * *

  After searching the downstairs area, Dare found his grandfather in his room with the lovely Dr Evans hovering over him.

  ‘Dare.’ The old man said his name with a touch of asperity. ‘I’m glad you stopped by.’

  He had known he would, Dare thought cynically, guessing by Carly’s taut features that she had no doubt warned him that Dare would be on the warpath. Had she also shared anything else? Like those passionate kisses that had temporarily fried his brain?

  Unbidden, his eyes shifted to the king-size bed that was—thankfully—without a wrinkle on it.

  ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘Yes,’ Benson agreed.

  Carly bent close to the old man’s ear and murmured something that made him shake his head. A wave of possessiveness surged through Dare and he clenched his fists at his sides.