Текст книги "If You Dare"
Автор книги: Jessica Lemmon
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He’ll make her a bet she can’t refuse…
Lily McIntire is in the creepiest mansion in town. Alone. At night. Because she’s an idiot—and can’t ignore a dare from her cocky and infuriatingly hot co-worker, Marcus Black. But she’ll be damned if she’s going to give him the satisfaction of winning.
Marcus has had a thing for Lily for ages, and he has no intention of losing this bet. His plan? Scare her out of the house, and into his arms. Once there, scaring her turns into protecting her and soon after, into seducing her. And his plan is working…
Lily is having trouble relegating Marcus to the role of “asshat” as easily as before. He came to her rescue, and he’s actually funny. Charming. Sexy as sin on a stick. But Lily has a strict no-love-in-the-workplace rule, and even one night of the best sex ever won’t make her change her mind. So she’s calling everything off…
Surviving a night in the mansion might just be the easy part. Surviving Marcus’s increasingly convincing advances is going to take everything she has. Losing is not an option…
NOTE: This title was previously published November 2013 on Flaunt as a novella but has been significantly revised and lots of yummy new scenes added to give readers a full-length category romance full of humor and sizzle.
Table of Contents
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Find love in unexpected places with these satisfying Lovestruck reads…
Sleeping with the Boss
Tell Me Something Good
Merger of the Heart
Masquerading with the CEO
Flirting with the Competition
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Jessica Lemmon. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.
Previously released on Entangled's Flaunt imprint – November 2013 and has been enhanced with new material.
Entangled Publishing, LLC
2614 South Timberline Road
Suite 109
Fort Collins, CO 80525
Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.
Lovestruck is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.
Edited by Liz Pelletier
Cover design by Heather Howland
Cover art from iStock
ISBN 978-1-63375-373-0
Manufactured in the United States of America
Second Edition July 2015
For Niki
The sister I never had, but got to choose.
Chapter One
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Lily McIntire pulled to a stop in the crumbling driveway of 102 Willow Street in Fantom, Ohio. Dust settled around her car, revealing the decaying building in front of her, its slats weather-beaten, front door padlocked, and porch stairs splintering. You know, the place where she’d be getting absolutely no sleep tonight.
She chewed on her lip and reconsidered leaving the sanctuary of her car. But she had to. A gauntlet had been thrown, and thrown by a man she refused to lose to. Again.
Dammit.
“Probably just full of spiders, anyway,” she said aloud as she unbuckled her seat belt. Her voice came out paper-thin and not infused with the courage she so desperately needed, but she ignored that. She also ignored the fact that she hated spiders, and any number of creepy-crawly things, all of which were probably living in communal harmony inside the decrepit building. “Look at the bright side,” she grumbled, climbing out of the car. “Spiders are better than what is allegedly lurking around here.”
This might have been the one and only case where spiders were preferable.
It seemed dangerous to admit even to herself that she was scared half out of her wits just being there, let alone staying overnight. But she sure as hell wasn’t going to give Marcus Black the satisfaction of winning the stupidest bet on earth.
One night in Willow Mansion would get her a four-day, five-night trip to Hawaii. All expenses included. And after two years of busting her hump as one of two lead designers at Cameron Designs, she had earned it. The dare Marcus threw at her feet? It was a no brainer. And if she lost, she’d owe him one date. One work date. She could do this. She would do this.
Straightening her shoulders, she tromped to the front of the house, kicking loose gravel and crunching a stray leaf here and there. The foliage had changed from green to burnished gold a few weeks ago. Some leaves still stubbornly clung to the trees, but the majority lay strewn in the overgrown grass and clogging the warped gutters overhead.
Lovely.
Other than a few obvious building code violations, the house didn’t appear too oppressive in the streaming sunlight. And under the wide, bowing maples, dappled with late September sunshine, Willow Mansion was almost…well…charming. Not that she’d recommend refurbishing it into a summer home or anything, but one night wouldn’t be that bad. A pleasant breeze kicked Lily’s hair and stuck a few stray strawberry-blond tendrils to her lip gloss. She tugged them away and smiled at the relic before her with newfound appreciation. Maybe all the rumors about the mansion had been wildly exaggerated.
A creak sounded overhead, and she diverted her attention to the upstairs windows. An ancient shutter shifted on its hinges, let out a grating whine, and fell from its precarious perch. She leaped to the right, a pathetic squeak trembling in her throat as the shutter crashed to the ground and sent a spray of pebbles onto her shoes. Heart hammering against her ribs, she glanced upward again and reconsidered going inside. Spiders or ghosts were now the least of her worries. Having a ceiling collapse in on her, on the other hand…
“Get me through this,” she said to the Man Upstairs through clenched teeth. “And I’ll never drink tequila again.”
Yes. Tequila. All bad ideas started with tequila. And usually ended with them, too.
After work on Wednesday, she’d allowed herself to be talked into a celebratory shot-and-beer night by her (mostly) well-meaning coworkers. They’d just won the bid on Reginald London Superstores. The first would open in Ohio in June of next year, and their winning interior design drawing had been chosen over at least twelve other big-name firms. London was a huge coup for Cameron Designs, and the account would bring in more profit than Lily’s best friend, Joanie Cameron, had seen since she and her husband, Clive, launched their firm a little over two years ago. Lily was beyond proud of her friends, who deserved every good thing that came their way. It had taken them nearly three months of late nights and working on weekends to complete the proposal, but their team prevailed as the little-foursome-that-could.
Then there was the matter of her co-designer, asshat Marcus Black…
Though a consummate prankster, the man was an integral part—if not the superior cog—of knocking this one out of the park, but it didn’t mean she had to swoon over him like the rest of the female population. Just thinking of him raised her hackles—his know-it-all attitude, his cocky, better-than-you half smile, the train of blondes he paraded at the annual Retail Space Design dinner every year. This year, he would be accepting the coveted Designer of the Year award. If the award were judged on personality, she was sure he’d have lost to someone far more pedigreed.
And now she was being mean. She couldn’t help it. She’d been vying for that award since the start of her career four and a half years ago and was sure (sure!) that this year she’d nailed it. Add that to the fact she’d lost a recent tit for tat contest with the man, and she had more than a few wounds to lick.
So, Marcus wasn’t quite the asshat she’d like to continue convincing herself he was, and honestly, there were times when his half smile stirred parts of her below the skirt better left unmentioned. And that know-it-all attitude and string of sharp-barbed jokes often came with a good-natured grin, punctuated by a deep dimple in one cheek.
Her heart fluttered as she thought of him now, and she immediately chastised herself. Attractive or not, dating her co-worker was strictly off-limits. Forever. If she ever expected to be respected—to win the RSD Designer of the Year award for herself—she couldn’t think with her girl-parts. She was more brains than boobs, no matter what her ex thought of her.
Still, she’d let her imagination cross a line on occasion. Like on one particularly late night, when she and Marcus were hovering over several designs and a few containers of Kung Pao chicken. She’d watched in awe as he slid his pencil over a fresh sheet of paper, sketching the design that would be the one London preferred better than all of the others. Retail space layout wasn’t the sexiest of interior architecture, but Marcus wore it well. His capability spoke for itself, and watching that undeniably masculine hand dusted in dark hair move across the paper was like watching a painter capture a sunset with amazing accuracy. She’d leaned over him, captivated, while his aftershave tingled her senses, and his deep voice penetrated her shell. The rare moment of amicable peace between them made her wonder if she’d misjudged him initially.
“Whatever.”
She needed to believe that Marcus, with his serial dating history and captivating brand of charm, was no different than the other talented, good-looking jerks she’d dated in the past. Then she could avoid him. If she could only get her hormones on board with her very astute mind, then she’d have no problem preventing a situation like the last one she escaped.
At the thought of Emmett, her lip curled. No. She wasn’t willing to repeat the mistakes she’d made with a certain degenerate man-whore in the past. Marcus may not be as classless as Emmett, but it didn’t stop her mantra of “Never again” from dancing through her head.
At the thought, her heels dug in deeper, and she made a wide arc around the downed shutter and opened her trunk.
Crowbar in hand, she approached the door, testing the tool’s weight. She’d never broken into a building before. The only lock-breaking experience she had was when she’d busted the little silver one on her older sister’s diary. Admittedly…not the same. She took one last glance around the grounds to ensure she was alone, shoved the crowbar into the rusted U of the padlock, and gave it a sharp pull. The lock popped open and thudded onto the warped wooden porch.
“Ha!” An unexpected sense of accomplishment surged through her. “See?” She bent to retrieve the lock, tossed it into the air, and caught it in her palm. “I’m not uptight.”
Which was exactly what she’d been trying to prove to Marcus on Wednesday night when she went to the bar to celebrate the contract. He thought she had a stick up her ass, and she’d intended on proving him wrong. While she often went home to a frozen pizza, he was the one dating half the town. Maybe three-quarters. Hard to say. So, two days ago, Lily let his harmless jabs at her power suit roll off her back, had gracefully accepted his challenge to a game of pool, and even proved she could hang out in a dive bar by shedding her fitted blazer and tossing it over a torn leather stool.
When she’d first come to Cameron Designs after leaving her former job, Marcus had caught her eye. No denying the way his stubble perfectly rimmed his lips, or the tumble of dark hair begging her fingers touch me. On another plane, she could have easily fallen for his charm. He’d asked her out, after all. She’d been there a few short weeks and he sidled into her office and leaned on her desk and asked her out for dinner. Not drinks. Not coffee. “This new Italian place,” he’d said. The part of her that would have said yes before Emmett was gone, and had apparently absconded with her manners but not her sanity. She’d replied with a curt, “No.” Marcus took the rejection with surprising grace, but then the jabs started. Like a kid in school pulling her pigtails, he hadn’t let up since.
She would have been flattered if she wasn’t so determined to never date anyone ever again in the history of time and space. But then afterward, they’d settled into a comfortable rivalry. Marcus teased her at work, and joked profusely, and she ignored the fact he dated like it was a sport. Honestly, she figured he had asked her out because he asked everyone out. He was a dating machine. She…wasn’t. Her bandaged reputation couldn’t afford to be.
So in comparison, she was definitely the more rigid of the two of them. Somehow on Wednesday night, after two tequila shots followed by two or three bottles of beer—she couldn’t remember—his jabs turned into charm and she had not only been baited into this lamebrain bet, she’d insisted on it.
“I’m not as girlie as you think, you know,” she’d said, one hand wrapped around her pool stick, the other propped primly on her hip.
Marcus, who had been racking the pool balls at the other end of the table, paused to grunt at her statement before moving the eight ball to the center position and rolling the triangle into place.
That smug sound never failed to raise her ire. Chapping her ass seemed to be a talent Marcus Black had mastered. And she didn’t want him to think less of her. She wasn’t really sure what she wanted from him, but she did want to impress him. He impressed her all the time without even trying. Like right then, when he lifted the triangle off the balls and not one of them wiggled out of its spot.
She searched for the memory of one thing she’d done in her life that might make her seem less of a fuddy-duddy. The moment she thought of one, she flashed him a smile. “When I was in the eighth grade, my friend Valerie and I hiked up to Willow Mansion.”
Long believed to be a local haunt, the mansion was a hotbed of paranormal rumors and teenaged debauchery. Everyone in Fantom knew of the story behind the mansion, the likely overblown tale of the woman who fell to her death from a second story window. Maybe it was true, maybe it wasn’t. But everyone thought it was, so she figured she’d use that as her badge of bravery. Proof she could hang with the tough kids.
Instead, Marcus spared her a dry glance, his hooded eyes wholly unimpressed.
Figured.
“On Halloween,” she lied, amping up her street cred. “Night.” The more she added, the lamer she sounded. She shut up while she was ahead.
Removing the triangle from the carefully arranged balls, he flipped it end over end in a smooth, annoyingly graceful motion. She bet he never fumbled anything. Meanwhile, she was sporting a coffee stain on her skirt from a mishap at Tim Horton’s that morning. Like she had in the past, she took a moment to admire his strong hands—capable of precision and artistry, but manly and rough enough to make her wonder what they’d feel like on the soft skin at the back of her neck. A fantasy that could have been reality if she’d said yes to Italian that day long ago. But it was too late to go back now. If he ever meant it at all.
She blinked out of her little alcohol-induced fantasy, a daydream that was not entirely her fault. The man really was too attractive for his own good—that natural bad boy swagger, the defined sinew of his forearms, and his voice, low and gravelly with a hint of humor, as showcased when he spoke next.
“Yeah, right. You wouldn’t last an hour in that place.” He raised one dark eyebrow and added, “What did you do, run up, touch the front door, then run giggling down the driveway?”
She gave him an exaggerated eye roll and hoped it was convincing. The scene he’d described was exactly what her friend Val had done. Lily hadn’t been as brave. A good fifty feet away from the house, her fair skin baking under the bright noonday sun, she’d shouted at Valerie to hurry up before they got caught.
Okay, so maybe she was the rigid good girl. But she’d tried to break the rules once—dating her ex had been against workplace policy—and she’d paid dearly. Following rules was smart. She was one of the best designers of retail spaces large and small. She had guts. She had moxie. She had…freckles. And she felt each one of those scattered dots vanish under her blush of embarrassment at Marcus’s insight.
Of course he noticed. He came closer, his pool cue in one hand. “I knew it.” He tapped her nose with his forefinger, his voice low and sensual. Parts of her leaned closer to him. The parts that shouldn’t.
She straightened purposefully. “I’ll bet you I could.” Her voice was smaller than she would’ve liked, but she forced herself to meet his eyes. Sort of. He grinned and her gaze trickled down to the dimple indenting his left cheek. She stared at it a beat too long, wondering idly how a man with whitened teeth and supple lips could still look rugged and manly.
“All night?” That close to her, his innuendo-loaded, two-word question sent her blood pumping extra fast through her veins and made her briefly entertain a mini-fantasy about what he would be like in bed. It’d been a while since she’d been in bed with anyone other than her vibrator, so what did she know? So, she imagined. Just for fun. Just for a second. She wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to find he took his time exploring her body. Or if he laid his tongue on her skin and drew long, slow lines down her limbs just like he did when he set pencil to paper. She’d noticed that when he’d sketched the design for London’s retail store. The way Marcus almost… savored each and every line. The careful way he cradled the lead, the smooth motion of his hand sliding over the paper. The scraping sound as each line formed before her eyes… The way she imagined his stubble would scrape on her neck.
On her bare breasts…
“Your break,” he said.
She snapped her shoulders back.
“You didn’t answer me.”
It was a full five seconds before she recalled what they’d been talking about. Her imagination was snagged between the brambles of the fantasy of his mouth, and the idea that she could use that as fodder for her date with her vibrator. Dragging her eyes from his face, she chalked the end of her cue stick with way, way too much concentration. “Yes. All night.”
“You’re on.” He slid around behind her, his body heat enveloping her, his warm breath fanning her hair and causing her nape to tingle.
Turned on, maybe.
“Hundred bucks.”
She moved away from him, palming her throat to catch her breath. The scratch of his voice, his very presence, threw her majorly off-kilter. She had to regain her focus, get her feet under her again. With a new sense of purpose, she leaned over the racked balls.
Infusing her own voice with confidence, she said, “Come on, Marcus. We just made thousands of bucks from our bonuses on the London account. I think a bet like this one calls for higher stakes.” She cracked the cue ball into the center of the arranged balls. Lame. Her shot did little more than roll the colorful orbs a few inches from their original resting places.
Behind her again, he grasped her hips with wide, warm hands—she assumed to move her to the side. But before he did, he squeezed his fingers into her skirt, just enough to dance along the line of “inappropriate”. Only it didn’t feel inappropriate. She felt like backing her ass into his crotch. Pressing her head into his chest. Maybe rubbing against him a little… Right when she might have done just that, he moved to her left, robbing her of his heat and attention, and positioned himself over the cue ball.
A fine sheen of sweat lingered on her brow and she reached for her drink, unsure if the beer would help or hinder her at this point, and not caring either way.
“Fine.” He paused over the table and shot her a look laced with dark promises. “A thousand.”
She cleared her throat and adjusted her skirt as if she could wipe away the twin heated imprints of his hands on her body, or the look in his eyes that made her wonder for a split second if she might not regret sleeping with him. Even if it only lasted one night. Then she remembered her last workplace tragedy and decided that sex with a coworker was so the worst idea. He leaned over the table, and she appreciated the way his jeans outlined his perfect butt, and the way the snug cotton T-shirt molded over one muscular shoulder as he drew back the pool cue. She couldn’t help it. And she figured as a female it was her duty to notice a specimen this delicious. So long as she kept her clothes on when he was around, no harm, no foul.
Proving his body was for more than just admiring, his shot smacked into the balls and scattered them across the table with a satisfying crack! A solid sank into one corner and another dipped into the side pocket.
But of course.
“You have big ones.” A smile tilted his lips on his stubbled face.
“Excuse me?”
“Stripes,” he said. “They look bigger than the solids.”
“Oh.” She shook her head, pretending frustration, but mainly it was to get her brain back online. Note to self: Tequila makes you attracted to unworthy men.
They’d been discussing something before she’d lost time ogling him…oh, right. The bet. If not money, what? Then she landed on it, digging an idea out of the part of her brain not marinating in Jose Cuervo. “Hawaii.”
His aim slipped, sending the white ball into the corner pocket. He straightened, his smile vanishing as if dry-erased from his face. “I won that trip fair and square.”
“That’s debatable.”
Joanie and Clive had intended the trip as a second honeymoon, until Clive learned he’d be at a work-related conference during the first weekend in December. The Camerons put their trip on the line as a reward to the designer who could win the most accounts in two months. Lily and Marcus were neck and neck the entire contest…until Marcus had won by one account.
“You submitted your drawings to Alan the same day I did,” he said, petulant.
Alan. His cousin. Like she would have had a prayer of winning the bid to redesign the svelte coffee shop’s interior! True, a win was a win for Cameron Designs, and normally they were all on the same team. But her competitive nature had flamed hot during that contest. Losing to Marcus stung.
She wanted Hawaii. Hell, she wanted to win.
On my own. With no one’s help. Yeah, that. Emmett, her ex-boyfriend’s stupid face popped into her mind again. Why was she thinking of him so much lately? Maybe because this was the first time she’d really felt like her spark was back. Marcus had fed that flicker, and now she was alight.
She crossed her arms and refocused on her goal. How to get a do-over from Marcus? “What’s the matter?” she teased, baiting him. “Too scared to put Hawaii on the line?”
Her suggestion shouldn’t have worked. It was immature and childish… But his jaw ticked in challenge, and she found herself tamping down the smile dying to produce itself on her face. Simply say the word “scared” to the man and he’d break his neck trying to prove he wasn’t.
“You’d have to stay the entire night,” he finally said.
Ha! She had him. “Done.”
“Alone.”
“Done.”
“This Friday. The thirteenth.”
“D-Done.”
