Dare Me

by River Laurent

  He was right, but there was no way I would admit it. I flushed with humiliation, and he turned away and began running the tap into the sink. I chewed my bottom lip. He thought I was a spoiled brat. He didn’t understand that I was just a woman desperately in love. Until I came here he didn’t even know I existed, and I loved it when he noticed me, and wanted me.

  I wanted to see that look of desire and need in his eyes again.

  “You were the one who ate me out,” I said to get his attention. I wasn’t used to talking dirty, and putting it out there like that made my pussy clench with the memory of it. God, that had been the hottest thing I’d ever felt in my life. I had hooked up with enough fumbling college boys to know no one was like Quinn. No one made me feel the way Quinn did. I never let any of them get past first base. I guess I was always saving myself up for him.

  “You’re such a brat.” He shook his head. “What the fuck were you thinking telling her all of that? What if your father found out?”

  “You should have thought of that before you did it!” I shot back. My voice rose, and my heart was pounding in my chest.

  He took his hands out of the sink and planted them on the counter, pressing against the polished marble. “I shouldn’t have done it. I know that.”

  “I’m not complaining. I loved it,” I told him softly, all the anger draining out of me. I stepped toward him. The distance between us felt so far. I could have reached out and touched him, my bare feet pattering softly on the wood beneath me. He didn’t acknowledge my presence.

  He turned slowly, finally letting his eyes fall on me. My breath hitched. He inhaled deeply, and let it out slowly, the sound filling the air between us as he did so.

  “You scared that perfectly decent woman away, and for what?” he asked. His voice was low and defeated.

  “Because she deserved to know the truth!” I insisted. “You only invited her round to piss me off. Didn’t you? Admit it.”

  “You think everything’s about you.” He shook his head as though he couldn’t believe he was having this discussion with me. “People have their own lives, Madison. I’m just doing your father a favor. I didn’t want you here in the first place.”

  “Maybe I’ll go,” I narrowed my eyes at him. “And I’ll tell my father why I’m going.”

  He didn’t react, so I decided to test him. I knew I was being a total bitch, but I wanted to provoke a reaction from him. Anything other than this sickening sensation that my behavior tonight had made me lose him for good. All I ever wanted was for him to tell me he wanted me to stay. That it was about more than just pleasing my father.

  I stepped back, keeping his gaze the whole time. He twitched, but didn’t move, and I took another step away from him. Biting my lip I started to turn away when he finally snapped. He shot his hand out and caught my arm in a strong grip.

  “Don’t go anywhere,” he whispered hoarsely.

  His fingers felt good on my skin, just firm enough to let me know he was serious. I stared up at him. My lips parted as I felt the feelings between us mount to something neither of us could argue with.

  Then, before I knew it, his lips were on mine, his tongue pushing into my mouth. I swear, my head swooned, and everything else in the world dropped away. Nothing mattered but us. I wrapped my arms around his neck, clutching him, holding him as tight as I could. I would never again let go. I pressed my body against his, and felt something close to relief as he kissed me hard and deep. His arm snaked around my waist to pull me tight against him.

  The scent of his aftershave filled my nostrils, and I shuddered with pleasure as his thumb caressed my waist and moved down to my hips. I ran my hands through his hair, desperate to feel as much of him as I could, taking in every inch of his body while I still could.

  He pulled back suddenly and I practically fell forward. I let out a small, disappointed groan. No. No. No. Not when we’d got so close. Not when it was so obvious this was not passing thing. We were meant to be together. I wanted him badly, and I knew he wanted me too. Why couldn’t we just go ahead and do this?

  “We can’t do this,” he said, shaking his head. He started walking away from me, making his way to the balcony. I hurried after him. He opened the doors and stepped outside. The city was spread out below us. It was beautiful and I wished we could have come here in happier times, when this could have been romantic instead of filled with awful tension.

  “Why can’t we?” I asked. “I want this and so do you. I don’t see what the problem is.”

  “You’re going back to London, Madison,” he replied. His voice hollow and empty. I saw a flicker in his eyes that told me the thought of it hurt him. “I’ll rent out a hotel room, you can have this place. I don’t want to…I don’t want to fuck things up for you.”

  “What makes you think you’re going to fuck things up for me?”

  “Have you got any idea of what would happen if anyone found out what we’ve done?” He turned away from me and looked at the sky.

  I touched his arm and he flinched. “I can handle it.”

  “You have no idea.” He shook his head, a mirthless laugh punctuating his words. “You’re…you’re not risking a lot with all of this.”

  “And what are you risking?” I asked, cocking my head at him. The way he spoke to me made me feel like I was some kind of irresponsible idiot. I was a woman not a child, but it was clear that that was how he still saw me. If not physically, then emotionally.

  “If Kevin finds we’re even having this conversation, he’ll dump me in a minute. I’m not losing him, or the business I’ve work so hard for, just for this moment of weakness.”

  “I won’t tell him if you won’t,” I promised, stepping closer to him.

  He shook his head. ‘No, I don’t want to lie to him. He’s like a brother to me.”

  Despite the topic of conversation, I wanted to wrap my arms around him. I couldn’t hold myself back from him. He was just so irresistible. I’d wanted this for so long, and now that it was so close to actually happening, I had trouble accepting what he said.

  “My dad doesn’t decide who I go with. We’re both adults.”

  “The age gap…it’s too much. That kid tonight, the one who was here earlier. That’s the kind of guy you should be with, not me.”

  “I can make the decision of who I want for myself,” I said softly. Lifting my head to meet his gaze, I placed a hand on his chest. I could feel his heartbeat pick up beneath his shirt, but a split-second later he stepped away from me again, leaving my fingers hanging in the air where he had once stood.

  “Of course, you think that. You don’t realize the consequences,” he snapped.

  I knew my refusal to see his point of view was pissing him off. Well, when he gave me a good reason, I would accept it. “I don’t understand why you are making something so simple so complicated?” I cried.

  “You can’t…shit, you can’t see that it wouldn’t be fair, can you? I have my own life, my own world, Madison. You’re so far away and you’re young. You’re so young. I don’t want you hung up on me when you could be off enjoying yourself and taking the world by storm.”

  I clenched my fists at my sides. “I don’t care about any of that. I just want this. You. I need you, Quinn.”

  He closed his eyes and exhaled heavily. I wondered if he had to fight as hard as I was to keep his hands off of me. My fingers dug into my palms, and the pain was the only thing keeping me from grabbing for him once more.

  “I want this,” I murmured. “I want you. I want to feel your tongue between my legs again, Quinn.”

  When I said his name, he seemed to react to it. It was like an incantation on my tongue, and he finally looked up at me. He blinked twice, slowly. Then he ran his tongue over his bottom lip, and I saw that he was having trouble coming up with a good excuse to throw in my direction. He wanted me as much as I wanted him. I parted my lips and stepped toward him. We were so close. I knew he intended to kiss me again.

  Both of us jump
ed when his cell rang in his pocket. Reaching into his blazer he pulled out his phone. He glanced at screen, looked up at me, then back at the screen. He paled.

  “It’s your father,” he muttered, and turned his back on me to take the call.

  I felt a wash of panic. Could Dad somehow have instinctively sensed our conversation? I hugged myself tightly. I needed to keep my cool. I loved my dad, but I was in love with Quinn and nothing was going to keep me away from him.

  Quinn

  “Kevin,” I greeted as calmly as I could in the circumstance. His daughter had just chased away my date and attempted to seduce me. “Good to hear from you. How’s it going over there?”

  “Fine, it’s good,” he replied, sounding oddly distracted.

  “Everything alright?” I asked, glancing over my shoulder to check on Madison. She was leaning on the rail of the balcony, staring out across the vista below us with a half-blank expression on her face. I knew she was listening, so I lowered my voice and continued my conversation with Kevin.

  “I completely forgot about Madison’s birthday,” he confessed.

  I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise “What?”

  “It’s Madison’s birthday tomorrow,” he explained quickly, and I heard him pacing back and forth across the floor of what I assumed was his hotel room. “I was meant to be there, but…hell, with everything going on I forgot to tell you. I’m so sorry. I was out the door before I had a chance to even think about that.”

  Her birthday? She hadn’t mentioned a thing to me about it. I saw her ears prick up, but she didn’t turn to face me. Why would she have kept this to herself? It seemed like the kind of thing she would have mentioned at some point over the last few days.

  “Oh, shit,” I muttered.

  “I have a booking at that fancy French place across town,” he replied vaguely. “I forget the name now.”

  “Maxine?” I said slowly.

  “Yeah, that’s the one. It was meant to be a surprise for the two of us, but now that I’m not there…”

  “You want me to…?” My voice was heavy, but how could I say no.

  “If you wouldn’t mind,” he replied, his voice careful. “I’m sure I could find someone else if you really don’t want to do it, but since the two of you are already together and she doesn’t know that many other people in the city-”

  “It’s fine, Kevin, really,” I cut across his guilty babbling. He had a habit of going off like this when he thought he was being an asshole. The only way to stop it was to convince him that he wasn’t asking much at all. Besides, I was the one who should have been feeling guilty. I shuddered at the thought of him knowing about the conversation I just had with his daughter. He’d have torn my guts out with his bare hands, and I wouldn’t have blamed him.

  “Thank you,” he replied, his voice bubbling over with relief and gratitude. “I’ll have my secretary pass the booking details on to you. I know you’ll look after her. Are you guys getting on okay?”

  “Yeah, sure.” I shot another look in Madison’s direction. It was as though I couldn’t keep my eyes off her, no matter how hard I tried. The look on her face, completely unreadable, sent an avalanche of emotions rumbling through my system: guilt, lust, concern, desire. I had no idea which one was going to come out on top after all of this was over.

  “Good,” Kevin said. He sounded satisfied. “I’ll call you later this week, and we can talk about the deal then.”

  “Sure.” I closed my eyes, wishing he could walk through the doors that instant and take his girl off my hands before I did something I would regret.

  “Great thanks,” he said happily. He had solved his problem. “Er…is Madison around?”

  “Yeah. Hang on.”

  I walked over to Madison and held out the phone. Silently, she took it from me and put it to her ear.

  “Hey, Dad.”

  I tried not to listen to her monosyllabic replies, but it was impossible even when I moved to the kitchen.

  “Goodnight,” she said finally, and hung up. She handed the phone back to me, and I dumped it into my pocket.

  Her mouth quirked as if to say what now?

  “Your father told me it’s your birthday tomorrow,” I said, cocking an eyebrow at her.

  She shrugged nonchalantly and gazed back, her face impassive, but I saw that she hurt somewhere deep inside.

  “How old will you be?” I asked, knowing I didn’t actually want to hear the answer to that question.

  “Twenty.”

  I stared at her curiously. She was going to let a milestone birthday go by without mentioning anything to anyone. “Your father booked a table for the two of you at some fancy restaurant. He hoped he’d be back in time-”

  She shrugged. “It’s okay. It really doesn’t matter.”

  “But since he can’t, he wants me to take you,” I finished, looking at her intently.

  “Really?” Her eyes widened with a child-like excitement, and I suddenly remembered the conversation we had when she was a child. When she asked if she could come and live with Kevin and me. I had felt sorry for her then and I couldn’t help feeling that some part of her was still that same neglected child of a workaholic father and a mother who had no time for her because she had just found a new boyfriend. She pretended to be rebellious and bratty, but it was a just a façade she had put up to deal with her situation. Poor thing. She had come all the way out here to see her father only to be left alone on her birthday.

  “Yeah,” I nodded and smiled. “And we’re going…if you want.”

  “I do. Very much,” she said eagerly. Then she glanced at her feet, and the conversation we’d been having before her father called, lingered unspoken, between us, but I didn’t want to carry it on. I wanted to get the fuck to bed before either of us did or said anything we couldn’t take back.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.” I smiled, and started walking backward. “I’ll pick you up from here around seven. Dress up nice, it’s a black-tie kind of place.”

  “Okay,” she said, her face lighting up with happiness. She looked like an angel.

  I turned away from her.

  “Goodnight,” she called after me, but I didn’t turn or look back.

  My heart swelled over with something close to affection for her, and I didn’t want my damn stupid feelings to get in the way of doing a favor for my friend. I closed the door to my bedroom, stood against it, and ignored the tantalizing sounds of her footsteps in the corridor outside as she went to her bedroom.

  I had survived another night.

  Quickly, I stripped down and stood under a cold shower, cold enough to make me shiver. Then, I got into bed, closed my eyes and waited for sleep to come. It came in the early hours of the morning.

  Quinn

  Kevin had already sent the booking details of the restaurant to the office by the time I arrived at work the next morning. We’d been to it a few of times, celebrating new investors, or big clients. It wasn’t exactly the kind of place you could go for a date, because your date would automatically assume you were going to propose, or some shit like that. It was that pricey. But I’m not surprised Kevin had picked it out for his daughter’s birthday.

  She was special.

  I had asked my assistant to bring down one of my nicer suits for the event and it hung in the executive suite for me. As I changed into my suit, there was a fluttering in my stomach that hadn’t been there when I had organized my date with Victoria.

  Butterflies in a goddamn adult male. What the fuck?

  I shouldn’t have been getting anything close to this excited, but something about Madison, about the way she spoke to me, the way she challenged me. I couldn’t get her out of my mind.

  If she only knew how firmly wedged she was into my brain she’d probably get a secret kick out of it. It had occurred to me that this whole lets-seduce-Quinn game was her trying out her feminine wiles. Seeing how potent she could be. For all I knew her plan was simply to see if she could get me hun
g up on her. Well, if that was the plan it sure worked.

  I was so hung up, right now, even the idea of hanging out with another woman was unthinkable.

  I saw another side to her last night, and now I was even more interested and intrigued than before. I had accused her of acting like a brat toward Victoria, which she had, but I was convinced she had been acting out in front of Victoria for my attention. And when I really thought about it, I had to admit she had never behaved as if she was entitled to any special treatment from her father or me.

  She could so easily have twisted my arm, backed me into the corner of having to play nice and manipulate me into taking her out to celebrate her birthday, but she never said a word. If her father hadn’t called, there was a good chance the topic would never have come up at all.

  She would have gone through the whole day lounging around alone in my empty house, and waiting for me to get back, so we could have another lousy argument. Hell, she was probably coming on to me just because she was lonely. The problem was I wasn’t made of stone. I wanted to make sure she had a good birthday. I just had to keep it out of my mind that this wasn’t a date, and everything would be fine.

  I shot my cuffs, and made my way out. I caught the looks from some of female staff who were packing up their desks for the day. One of them gave a long, low whistle. They were all happily married, and it was all in jest. The other women laughed and I grinned at them.

  “Hot date, huh?” Sally, one of the secretaries, called out.

  “Nope,” I said, and sailed out of the building. I was doing Kevin a favor, that was all.

  My driver, Benjamin, was waiting in the parking lot. I slipped into the backseat of the car and closed the door.

  Benjamin caught my eye in the rearview mirror. “You look very smart,” he remarked, his eyebrows raised as we pulled out. “Going somewhere nice?”

  “Maxine’s,” I replied.

  “Very nice,” he said, with a nod of approval.