Triple Dare

by Candace Irvin

  “He’ll be fine in the morning. Understandably upset over what happened, but he will remember you.”

  “I know. I believe you. I’ll just feel better when I see it for myself, you know? Hear his voice.”

  He did.

  The silence settled in again. This time she was the one who desperately wanted to end it. Though he was fairly certain what she wanted to ask, he waited for her to form the words.

  “What happened tonight, that…sympathetic feeling you got when you realized Brian was in trouble? That’s what happened when you were fifteen, isn’t it? With Janet?”

  “Yes.” And no.

  He had no intention of burdening Abby with the latter. Though the connection he’d unintentionally formed with Duane Randall had been based in ugliness, it had been as unbreakable and inescapable as the one he’d forged with her brother during those moments outside Avery Fisher Hall. And as with Brian, that bond had lingered for a time. Tonight he’d felt what her brother had felt—Brian’s overwhelming confusion, fear and horror. As to the maelstrom of emotions he’d felt emanating from Randall on that fateful night all those years ago? Dare blocked the memory before it could taint this moment with her.

  Unfortunately, she tugged on another.

  “What about your dad? Yesterday morning in the elevator, you told me you went to your father and asked for help, but that he didn’t believe Janet was in danger.”

  Dare nodded.

  “I was right, wasn’t I? There is more to the story. You told your dad you were an empath that night. To convince him to help. But instead of giving you his trust and support, he gave you this.” Dare held his breath as she reached up, closing his eyes as she pressed a finger to the scar on his lip.

  He didn’t answer. He still couldn’t.

  He could feel her heart breaking for him. For the boy he’d been. He wanted to tell her it didn’t matter, that he was over it. But it did and he wasn’t. He still carried the memory in his heart. The disappointment and disillusionment. But also the fear. The fear to ever tell another. After all, if his own father didn’t believe him, who would? But she understood that, too. He could feel it radiating from within as she settled her hand on his shoulders. “No wonder you couldn’t tell me.”

  He drew strength from her touch and opened his eyes. “For what it’s worth, I was about to. But then Liam showed up.”

  “And he did it for you. I think there’s more to it, though. I think you were hoping I’d eavesdrop.”

  Again she was correct.

  Even if she couldn’t feel his embarrassment, she had to have seen it, because he certainly felt it—searing up his cheeks. “Abby…you may have noticed these past few weeks, I’m…not terribly good with words.”

  She nodded solemnly. “That’s true.” To his disappointment, she dropped her hand from his shoulder and stepped back, though not far. “What about the limits and enhancements you discussed with Agent Brooks? Were those true, too?”

  “Yes. I can’t feel through glass. Sometimes emotions can spill around the sides if they’re intense enough, but for complete peace, there must be no gaps in the glass.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  How did he explain it? “Have you ever turned off your TV and lights, yet still heard a faint electrical whine?”

  “Sure.”

  “It’s like that. An emotional signature, if you will. One that never goes away. The darker emotions are harder for me to absorb, but even joy can cut if it’s intense enough. The more people, the more emotion. So I climb. The adrenaline dulls it for a while, but it’s not enough. For complete peace I need the glass. Hence, the shower. You may have noticed the glass in the ceiling. It’s embedded beneath the floor, as well.”

  “And the police station? When your temperature shot up? It was because of all the negativity in that place?”

  “Exactly.”

  He dreaded the next question. The next answer.

  “And the symphony? It’s like you said, isn’t it? All those people, all that emotion… Even if it’s the good kind, it’s too much. That’s why you didn’t hear me perform. Why you’ll never be able to hear me, not in public.”

  “Abby—”

  “I know. It’s not your fault.” But the silence dipped in. He could feel her fighting the disappointment. Then searching. Brightening. “There are always private performances.”

  True. But would that be enough?

  The violin was a huge part of who she was. How she expressed herself. The stage, the orchestra, the audience. She might be willing to accept his limits now, but what about six months from now? Six years? Would she grow weary of explaining away his absence to others and to herself?

  She stepped closer, came within inches of him and lifted her right hand, slipping her fingers into the very ends of his hair. “Hey, I don’t have all the answers. We’re just going to have to see how it goes. Make adjustments along the way.”

  She was right.

  He would simply have to accept what she was willing to share for as long as she was willing to share it.

  He nodded.

  Her mood lightened. He could feel her growing confidence. And something else. Something good. And very, very promising. “That last thing you mentioned to Liam, the part about touch. It’s like tonight, with Brian and with Marlena? When you touch me, you feel exactly what I feel?”

  “Yes.”

  She stepped closer. “What about right now?”

  “I can sense your emotions, feel your inner self. But even this close it’s not nearly as strong as when we touch.” And not nearly as satisfying. “But there’s something I didn’t tell Liam. With you, the touch is different. There’s…more. More than there’s ever been with another. Even when we’re not touching.” He now knew that day he’d first felt her had been especially intense because he’d unconsciously reached out to her across the lobby, mingling their essences without thinking, much less asking. “Abby, I don’t really understand what happens when I’m with you, except to say you…complete me in a way I never knew I could be completed. A part of me seeks you out. Constantly. When you’re not near or when I’m holding myself apart, I miss the connection. I miss you.”

  He felt her happiness well up, saw it fill her eyes. Spill over. He had to clench his fingers to keep from catching the tears. His hope burgeoned.

  “I know. I know I told you to leave my mind earlier. But now that you’re gone, I realize I miss it, too. I miss you.”

  “Are you inviting me back?”

  Though his sense rejoiced, he forced himself to wait for the words, reaching up to capture a curl from the mass still tangled from their ride across town. He wrapped the lock about his finger and smoothed it, savoring the bittersweet sensation of touching her and yet not touching her.

  Not as he craved to touch her.

  Inside and out.

  She inched closer, then all the way onto her tiptoes, rewarding his restraint a millionfold as she bathed his lips with her husky invitation. “You know, I never did take that shower. Why don’t you give me a minute or two to get cleaned up, then come on in and touch me…everywhere.”

  She felt him before she could see him.

  It had happened like that with him before. And yet, it had never happened quite like this. Because this time she knew what was happening—and she welcomed it consciously.

  She welcomed him.

  Abby tipped her face up into the closest spray of water, rinsing the last of the soap from her face as the cooler air from the bathroom cut through the shower’s steam. Gooseflesh rippled down her backside. The chills lasted no more than a second because Dare had already stepped into the eight-foot hexagonal chamber and closed the door, sealing out the entire world—except her. Though she’d finished rinsing, she kept her eyes closed as she absorbed his essence.

  Savored.

  She smiled as she felt Dare respond by easing deeper into her mind and her heart, until he was mingling with a part of her she’d never shared with anothe
r man and never would. Only then did she open her eyes. When she’d entered the shower, she’d turned on all three of the overhead nozzles for the sheer decadent novelty of it. If she had it to do over again, she’d have used one. Though Dare stood barely three-and-a-half feet away, there was far too much steam swirling between, most of it obscuring his body from the waist down, darn it. She consoled herself with the hard, rippling beauty of his chest naked and dripping wet.

  Her breath caught as Dare stepped closer and smiled. He was eighteen inches away now, so near she could feel the heat of his body within the warmth of the water raining down. Or was that her imagination? She didn’t know. She was too busy attempting to restart her lungs as Dare shifted to the left, stepping directly in front of a spray nozzle to tip his head back and soak his hair. She stared at the dusky length of his throat, her own going dry despite all this water. The spell broke as he bent down, disappearing into the steam for a moment to retrieve the bottle of shampoo she’d used. Her breath caught yet again as he straightened and smoothed the shampoo into his hair. The voyeur she didn’t even know she possessed crawled all the way to the surface, completely hypnotized by the sight of those strong, callused fingers working the shampoo into a lather. And when he smoothed the frothy suds down the ridges of his chest?

  Mercy.

  A slow striptease set to a sultry tenor sax couldn’t have been sexier. She knew then the show was deliberate. He hadn’t waited outside the room while she’d lathered herself.

  He’d watched.

  She felt his shameless smile.

  Anticipation fired her blood as he stepped back into the gentle spray and rinsed his hair, turning as the last dollop of suds slid down his chest, directly over his tattoo, hanging at the thick edge of his pectoral muscle for a brief, tantalizing moment before slipping lower. She followed frothy suds down his abdomen, only to frown as she met more swirling steam.

  He stepped closer.

  He was barely twelve inches away now and for the first time, utterly exposed in all his masculine glory. He stood silently, allowing her to look her fill, daring her to watch the evidence of his increasing pleasure as he absorbed the sight of her naked as well. The voyeur returned—and she looked. Even so, her cheeks grew hot as his erection grew thicker, harder. Somehow she managed to tear her gaze up, only to lose herself in the dark, erotic hunger of his stare.

  His heart.

  His hands.

  She started momentarily as those fingers finally reached out for her, shivering as he smoothed the tips along the tender flesh of her upper thighs and hips, slowly slicking them through the water droplets still spilling over her belly until he’d reached her ribs. She shivered as his fingers rasped higher and higher until he’d reached her breasts. Dare traced each plump swell in turn, up and around, and then back down. He dragged his fingers up once more, but this time he caressed her nipples, too, slowly and deliberately scraping his calluses across the tips.

  Her entire body quivered in response.

  A moment later she felt his whisper. “Close your eyes.”

  Feel.

  All of it. All of him.

  Let him feel her.

  She obeyed, her lashes drifting down of their own accord, as she felt Dare lower his slick, sinewy frame to his knees. A moment later she shuddered as his tongue flicked out, tasting one nipple, then the other. She dropped her hands, instinctively clutching his shoulders. The thick, roping muscles bunched beneath her fingers. She could feel him holding fast to his restraint as she regained her equilibrium and began to caress his arms and upper back, teasing his body as he teased hers. He responded in kind, bathing her breasts with slow, hungry strokes of his tongue until they were swollen, licking the water from her flesh as he drank his fill of the pure, sweet pleasure flooding her. He lifted his head and bit down on her nipples, worrying them gently between his teeth. He soothed each in turn and moved on. She started as he stopped to tease the slight ridge of her ribs with the tip of his tongue, then sighed as he kissed his way down her stomach.

  There he paused. Tarried. Tasted the tender flesh of her belly, his hungry mouth drawing lower and lower, until she was silently, wantonly urging him further. His smoky breath torched her womanly curls for a single, breathtaking moment. And then he was tasting from her intimate font.

  Her legs buckled.

  Even with the textured floor of the shower, she’d have slipped and fallen right then and there if he hadn’t sensed her need and deftly adjusted his grip. And then he delved deeper, robbing the air from her lungs even as he plundered the piercing pleasure directly from her soul. By his own admission, Darian Sabura might not be all that wonderful with words, but he was an absolute maestro of touch. And she was the cherished Strad beneath his hands. He glided his palms over her water-slicked curves, strumming her body with nimble strokes as he seduced the sweetest of melodies from her inner core. She gasped and she sighed.

  And then, he changed.

  He turned passionate in his demands, fiery. Determined. The erotic rhythm increased as his clever fingers and darting tongue took over, plucking at the strings of her passion until she was all but writhing in his arms. Suddenly, she couldn’t take the pace anymore. Any moment, she was going to shatter.

  No! It couldn’t end like this.

  Not this first time.

  While she knew he was absorbing every ounce of the pleasure she felt, she needed to feel his, too. She opened her mouth to tell him, but the words wouldn’t come out. A dark moan escaped instead. It didn’t matter. As always, Dare heard her heart. Listened. But as she felt his shoulders bunch, felt him rise to his feet, the worry set in.

  Yes, she was ready. So very ready.

  But was he?

  One look into that emerald inferno and she knew. Dare was more than ready. He dragged his palms down, clamping them beneath her rear, lifting her up straight in the middle of the shower. She was still gasping as he parted her thighs, wrapping them firmly about his hips. He anchored her there, staring into her eyes as he drove deep into her body with a single, powerful thrust—all the way into her soul. She was dimly aware of him guiding their bodies out of the rain of water and across the shower, of sealing her spine against the icy wall. A moment later, she was lost somewhere between the slick chill of the glass and the rock-hard blistering heat of him as he drove into her again and again.

  The music had returned.

  It was growing. Swelling. But it was nothing compared to the song in her heart. She could feel Dare deep inside her mind, merging with her very being, crooning along with her. And then he was commanding, encouraging, begging. He wanted her now. Needed her. And so she wrapped her arms tighter and gave herself up to the throbbing music, exploding in a whirling crescendo of passion, pleasure and him.

  And then they were raining down.

  Together.

  Slumping against the glass wall of the shower, listening to the steady splatter of water as the spray gradually cooled around them. She barely noticed as Dare scooped her up into his arms, twisting the master control off as he carried her out of the shower and into his bed. It wasn’t until he’d drawn the covers over them and drawn her even closer that she realized they hadn’t even taken the time to dry off. She didn’t care. She was already drifting deeper into his arms, into sleep, blissfully happy and completely in love.

  Abby woke with two men on her mind.

  Her damp head was still pillowed against the warm, firm chest of the first. Dare’s solid, comforting arms were still wrapped about her back as he pulled the night air deep into his lungs only to blow it out on an utterly contented sigh.

  That left Brian.

  Had he even stirred?

  Guilt bit in. The familiar pangs of worry followed. If Brian woke in a strange bed, in an even stranger apartment and she wasn’t there…? Abby lifted her head as carefully as she could, gently disentangling the length of her hair from Dare’s arms as she peered at the clock beside his bed.

  Four o’clock.

 
; She’d slept all day and most of the night?

  She glanced down at the gorgeous face of the man now stirring beneath her. That was some mojo Dare possessed. And she wasn’t the only one affected by it. Last night hadn’t transformed her into an empath. The proof was in Dare’s eyes. The weight of the world had left. Though she suspected it would be back, absolute peace filled its place for now. She trailed a finger through the sexy rasp covering Dare’s jaw.

  “Hey.”

  Sleep dipped his smile deeper than she’d ever seen it. “Hey, yourself. Where are you running off to?”

  “Nowhere. I just—”

  “—need to check on Brian.”

  She nodded. “Do you mind?”

  “Absolutely.” His smile deepened. “But it’s purely selfish. And I will get over it—with your help.” He reached up and caressed her arms, then teased his index finger beneath the edge of the sheet she’d drawn to her breasts. “I keep my T-shirts and shorts in the bottom drawer of the dresser. Hurry back?”

  “You bet.”

  He nodded, opened his mouth again—but a deep yawn edged out whatever he’d intended to say. He murmured something about her working better than Mount Everest and sank back into the dark-gray pillows instead. He looked so warm and content, she was tempted to sink down along with him.

  But she didn’t. She couldn’t.

  She had Brian to check on.

  Because of the man already snoring softly as she nudged her feet to the floor, her brother would be waking soon, ready to see her, ready to talk about what had happened outside Avery Fisher Hall. To deal with it. And to deal with the leftover wound of their father’s passing. She intended to be there when Brian woke, grateful that she’d found a man who not only understood, but cared for her brother as well. Abby retrieved a worn gray T-shirt from the drawer, but left the stack of shorts untouched. Dare’s shirt was so baggy when she pulled it on, and elastic or not, there was no way his shorts would fit. She headed for the bathroom and donned the blue shorts she’d worn climbing the morning before.

  It seemed like a lifetime ago.