DARE: A Bad Boy Romance (24 page)

“No, you’re both in it. Up to your necks. I told you it was a one-off warning. Now you can reap it.”

“Speak plainly, Silva, before I show you what
reap it
means.”

Barrett scoffed at him. “Please. What are you gonna do? Take on three of us? Don’t waste my time, Bowden.”

“Threaten Holly one more time and you’ll find out.”

The charged air reminded her of being ringside before a big fight. She could almost taste the testosterone. But, as sexy as Dare was when he was like this, she didn’t like where it was going. She took a step back. “It’s okay,” she told him. “He’s said his piece. I chose to ignore him. It’s all out now anyway. There’s no going back.”

“The inquest has only just started,” Dare reminded her over his shoulder, without losing eye contact with his opponents. “All you gave them was a name. That’s not enough to hang him. He can still squirm out of this a hundred different ways. Believe me, his threats are real.”

“I know. But I don’t want you to—”

Dare cut her off, shouting to Barrett, “Are we done?”

“Not even close.” The doctor took two steps forward. His men, who were at least as big as he was, followed suit. “I warned you what would happen, Holly, and you betrayed me, just like you betrayed Trey.”

“He was crazier than a shithouse rat,” she retorted. “
You
helped make that happen.”

“No. You drove him to it. He told me everything. He told me you were a chain around his neck, dragging him back the whole time. He wanted to soar, Holly, and you made sure his wings were clipped. I know all about it.”

“Lies! Fucking lies!”

“That right there is guilt speaking. You made his life unbearable, and you know it.”

The bitter sadness welling up inside her almost got the better of her fury. Almost. She’d racked her conscience over Trey and had tried to blame herself a dozen different ways, but none of it had stuck. Dare was right. Jessica was right. Her therapist was right. She was blameless, and anyone who said otherwise was playing an angle. In this sick bastard’s case, he was trying to goad her, to prey on her, to make her do or say something irrational that would tip the situation out of Dare’s control.

“Tell all the lies you want, Silva,” she said. “
You’re
the one who’s going down. We’ll make sure of that, you evil prick.”

“Fucking bitch!”

No sooner had Barrett lunged for her than Dare caught him and hurled him sidewise off his feet. Holly leapt back out of the way as the other two men rushed Dare.
Jesus,
why hadn’t she brought her Taser with her?

Because they’d never have let me in the freaking building,
she remembered.

Incensed, she dragged the nearest guy off Dare, yanking at his long, curly hair and spitting in his face. She went to scratch his eyes. Missed. Sliced his cheek with her nails instead. He backhanded her, knocking her into the gutter.

It stung like hell. She lay there, shaking.

Meanwhile, Dare had knocked out the third man, who lay sprawled across a hedge. He was now busy tangling with Barrett. No prizes for guessing who had the upper hand in that match-up. But when the second man jumped in after flooring Holly, the outcome was suddenly not so easy to call.

“Help!” she screamed. People stopped to watch from both sidewalks. A few started dialing on their cell phones. Then she remembered they were less than a block away from the courthouse! Surely the police would be sprinting this way right now.

Dare flung Curly Hair off his back and planted a size twelve on his jaw. The man scrabbled away across the asphalt, nursing his face. Then Barrett Silva got what was coming to him: a vicious uppercut that knocked him spinning into the road. Blood poured from his nose and mouth. He stumbled across the road and into the field on the other side. Curly Hair joined him, bleeding from a more serious injury but still able to quick-walk across the grass.

To his credit, Dare didn’t chase after them. He’d done what he needed to and the fight was over. Instead, he picked Holly up and, seeing how much she was shaking, carried her in his arms, all the way to his car.

Over three blocks away.

“You sure you’re not hurt?” Dare inspected the bruise over her cheekbone, where the thug’s backhand had struck hardest. The drive home hadn’t taken long, but the bruise was already a reddish purple.

“I’m good,” she replied, checking
his
cuts and bruises. She’d been knocked down once, but he’d taken hits from three separate guys. The gash over his eye had stopped leaking blood, but the wound looked angry. “You need to get that sorted as soon as possible,” she told him. “Get it stitched up.”

He fingered the cut as though he hadn’t realized it was there. “I’ll go later. I’m not leaving you alone.”

“I can go to Jessica’s.”

“Then I’ll drop you off on the way. After…” He heaved a tired sigh and flopped down beside her on the sofa. “After I’ve recharged a bit. Jesus.”

“Aw, come here.” Holly pulled him into her arms, kissed his forehead (probably the only spot on his head that didn’t hurt after the pounding he’d taken), then laid his head on her lap. “You can’t keep on doing that, you know,” she told him. “I don’t want you to end up punch-drunk as well. How about you use the Taser next time?”

“I was thinking the Uzi.”

“That’d work.” Though she couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not. “You think it might come to that?”

“That’s up to them,” he replied. “But I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you safe, believe me.”

That was worth another kiss right there. His sore, busted lip kinda spoiled the moment for him, but Holly held the kiss greedily. Not many women had a guy like Dare Bowden going to bat for them—hell, there
was
no one like him—and the scent of battle was still on him, that super-charged male vibe that soaked into her feminine craving, straight to her sex. The heat of the moment had not dissipated, not for her. She still imagined him fighting them off like some gladiator in the arena, protecting her to the death. And it made her wild.

Holly gently slid out from under him. He looked bemused as she began to unfasten his shirt buttons, then parted his shirt and explored his hot, hard muscles with her palms and her tongue. Then she went lower, unzipping his fly. His erection tenting his boxers only made her hungrier. While she massaged his cock through the fabric, with one hand on his stomach, Dare lay back, splaying himself across the sofa, his abdominals tensing fully under every heavy breath. He’d earned this, she thought, and now it was her turn to show him that she was more than just a damsel in distress. That she belonged in the arena as well when her blood was up.

Holly liked that he held back and let her take charge. Trey had never done that. He could never have let himself be dominated by a woman, end of story. But Dare was so much more secure in himself, in his sexuality. And he was game when it came to exploring the different frissons of lovemaking. Right now, her role was to pleasure him into sex, then heat things up as much as she could. But if he thought he could lie back passively and save his best for some blaze of glory finale, that he was going to burn
her
out this time, then he had another thing coming.

The way she was feeling right now, no man could burn her out in bed.

She pulled his shirt off altogether. His pectorals and shoulder muscles were harder and more defined than ever. Bruised, too, though it was tough to tell how much among all the crazy, exotic tattoos. Tracing those dark swirling shapes with her lips made her wetter than ever between her legs. He tried to sit up, but with one hand on his chest she pinned him down; with her other she reached inside his boxers and grasped the shaft of his large, throbbing cock. When she stroked it, trying to gauge its full height, Dare’s member popped out into the open and she licked her lips.

She plied him with more kisses on his mouth. Slower, growing steadily with passion. He was still content to let her have her way, his hands holding her by the hips the only sign that he hadn’t completely submitted. Maybe he was too tired. Maybe this was her show after all, which had its own possibilities, even if it was a slight disappointment. If that was the case, she’d best move this along and undress herself, so she could take her sweet time with him.

When she moved to get off him, Dare strengthened his grip on her waist. She found she couldn’t budge.

“Hey, I just need to—”

He interrupted her gentle words with a grunt. Their gazes locked. Before she knew it, Holly was on the sofa underneath him, his wild takedown move treating her to a thrilling afterglow.

“Allow me,” he said, and he flipped her over onto her stomach. She let out a giddy squeal of delight. The flutter in her tummy spread to a wicked craving for the unexpected—what might he do next? How good was it going to feel?

The answers came at her from behind. He yanked her skirt off, then strong-armed her upright to her knees so that her back was couched against his rippling muscles. With one hand he tilted her head back and nipped at her neck, sending shivers through her. His other hand felt inside the front of her panties. His fingertips stroked lower and lower until—
ahh—
he found her sweet spot. The combination undid her, leaving her at his mercy. He rubbed her clit slowly at first, and she roused with a quiet moan of pleasure. As the tempo increased, waves of involuntary clenching and arching rippled her body in sync with his touch.

But Dare wanted a taste for himself. He laid her flat again, this time on her back, and spread her legs. With a firm hand on her ass, he went down on her. Holly clawed at the upholstery to anchor herself. She blissed out, and he kept her there. For how long, she couldn’t tell.

The sound of him roughing off his pants gave her a few moments to find her bearings. Holly’s blood was way up, and she was eager to get Dare up to her speed. She pinned him against the cushion and crouched between his legs. He lay back, mouth open, and had no choice but to close his eyes as she dismantled his defenses with the rhythm of her insatiable jerk-and-suck appetite.

“Aw, fuck,” he groaned. So she didn’t stop.

Holly knew she had him. But why blow it all on an early flourish when there were many more rounds to go. She worked her way up his body again, enjoying his six-pack and those incredible arms that could destroy her if he wasn’t hers, right here, right now. Their kisses brought them closer than ever, one improvised give-and-take, one tongue lick at a time. Impatient. But also a waiting game, to see who would take the initiative next, and what that would bring.

***

It was a very humid eighty-five degrees, Tegan announced as she held off her sister at the entrance to the local park. Holly and Jessica both smiled at her. She was becoming quite the young woman, poised, inquisitive, and bright as a button. Deedee loved to monkey around and play up her youngest-and-therefore-here-to-have-fun attitude, but Tegan was maturing by the day. She was becoming more and more like her mother—a very good thing indeed, Holly reckoned.

At Holly’s insistence, Dare was at the hospital getting properly checked out and sewn up. She felt a little guilty now about putting sex before his treatment—the rough stuff had definitely not helped his wounds—but damn it, she just couldn’t resist. Her mouth watered at the memories alone.

He was certain they hadn’t been followed to Jessica’s, so he’d left her there for a few hours. Jessica and the kids had been planning to go to the park anyway, so it was the perfect way to disappear. There was no way Barrett Silva and his goons would find her here. In any case, they’d still be regrouping, licking their own wounds.

“You say this Silva’s a bigwig in the organization?” Jessica was trying to figure out all the angles, as was typical for her. Of course, Holly wanted her to. When you had a smart cookie of a big sister like Jess in your corner, you
wanted
to tell her everything.

So Holly did. Every word. Every gesture. Every last moment of their interaction with Silva.

“Did he ever strike you as someone who’d have criminal connections?” Jessica asked.

“In what way?”

“Well, he’s up to his eyeballs in it now, but how deep was he back when he was covering up for Trey? Was it a personal thing—a favor between friends? Or was he part of a bigger criminal ring, like a gambling cartel or something?”

“Why does that matter?”

Jessica waved to Deedee at the top of the big slide. “It matters because it might tell you who you’re up against here. If it’s just Silva covering his own ass, that might not be so bad. He might only have a few guys on his payroll. But if he was under orders back then, if he was
told
to cover up for Trey, then it might be the whole cartel trying to cover its ass. You might have stirred up a hornet’s nest.”

Holly looked away. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Silva said you don’t know who you’re dealing with. Did that sound like an idle threat, just tough talk? Or did he sound scared when he said it?”

“Um, I don’t know. I believed him, if that means anything.”

Jessica nodded pensively, then gave her a hard stare. “I’m sure you’ll be okay.” She gestured to an empty bench at the bottom of a grass verge, and they strolled to it. “So how’s it going with Dare, apart from all the head-breaking?”

“Okay. No, it’s better than okay. He goes out of his way to make me feel at home. It’s really sweet, actually. I can tell he’s not used to it.”

“To what?”

“To staying home this much. I reckon it’s only going to be a temporary thing, until he’s gotten used to me being there. I think he wants to make sure I feel safe with him before he starts incorporating his old routine. And that’s okay. I don’t
want
him to give anything up.”

“Except the eligible bachelor bad boy routine. Am I right?”

“Now, now, sis…be nice.”

Jessica pretended to zip her mouth shut.

“So he’s not exactly been a monk,” said Holly.

“To put it mildly.”

“But I have to believe he’s ready to settle down, right? I mean even Warren Beatty settled down at some point. George Clooney, too. Maybe I’m that girl for Dare Bowden.”

“Well, you two do seem to be getting it together. And to think, all one of you needed to do was ask the other. Was it that hard?”

Holly cringed when she recalled how lonely and low and pathetic she’d felt, hiding away in Tegan’s bedroom instead of…
Yeah, but I did almost die. Maybe I needed that time to myself.

“Put it this way,” she said, “I think the hardest part is over.”

“I’m certain of it.” Jessica treated her to an extra-generous sisterly hug that didn’t feel the least bit embarrassing, despite the packed playground. “For what it’s worth, he seems like a stand-up guy,” she added. “And you know I don’t use words like those lightly.”

“I know. You never said that about Trey.”

Jessica said nothing. She brushed a few loose strands of hair away from Holly’s eyes. The girls both gave screams of delight as the dad of one of their friends spun the roundabout faster and faster. It was great to see them enjoying themselves like that. They didn’t always get along, but when they did, it reminded Holly of when she and Jessica had been growing up together, protective of their own separate little girlish worlds, but also eager to share and relish the crossover turf, those games and activities that were only worthwhile if they both took part. Those had usually been the most fun: hide and seek, two-player PlayStation games, jump rope, and dance-offs at the arcade simulator.

“They’re cute when they’re like this,” she observed when Tegan helped her little sister grip the bar of the roundabout.

“While it lasts,” Jessica lamented. “We can enjoy it while it lasts.”

“Tegan’s growing up fast, huh.”

“Too fast. Why can’t they stay like this forever?”

Strangely, hearing that longing in her sister’s words, that wistful regret in her voice, triggered something inside Holly. A yearning all her own. It wasn’t the first time she’d considered having children, but it was the first time she’d felt unequivocally hopeful about the idea. With Trey, there’d always been doubts in her mind. He’d never mentioned having kids, not in all those years. All evidence pointed to him not even liking them, though he’d never admitted it. Also, he’d never proposed to Holly or even mentioned it—no plans to make their relationship permanent, let alone to start a family. But even if he had, what sort of father would he have been?