Текст книги "If You Dare"

Автор книги: Jessica Lemmon

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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 12 страниц)

Chapter Six

The question was supposed to be teasing, but Marcus didn’t laugh it off or shoot another insult in her direction. Instead, he reached for her iPad and tapped the screen. Avoidance. Interesting.

His head-in-the-sand reaction was a surprise. There was simply no way this confident, talented, alluring man was battling a case of nerves over an acceptance speech. All he had to do was say “thank you” and talk for a few minutes about how he became retail design’s golden boy. She’d have thought he’d lap up that kind of centered attention like a fat cat would cream. She couldn’t quite wrap her head around the idea of him being insecure about addressing his colleagues. Addressing anyone.

Figuring his worry was due to lack of preparedness, she asked, “Do you have your speech memorized?”

“Of course.” He looked up from the tablet, eyebrows drawn, clearly offended.

“Well, let’s hear it.” Practicing aloud always helped her before a big presentation.

The corners of his mouth turned down. He dropped the iPad on the mattress between them and licked his lips, distracting her for a split second. Because really, his mouth was…

Well. She just wasn’t going to think about what it was.

Rather than turn her down, he surprised her with a gruff, “Okay. Fine.” Then he rolled his shoulders, cracked his knuckles, and wiped his brow.

“It’s a speech, Marcus. You’re not signaling me to throw a fastball.”

“I’m getting to it.” He scratched the back of his neck, scrubbed his chin, and cleared his throat. She bit her lip to keep from smiling. “Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Cameron Designs and my fellow colleagues, I’d like to…” He trailed off and studied her. “What?”

“You’re frowning.”

“No, I’m not.” He marred his brow further.

“Are, too.” She made a peace sign and separated where his eyebrows met over the center of his nose. The moment the pads of her fingers touched his skin, everything changed. She became aware of the heat rolling off him and seeping through her fingertips, of his whiskey-colored gaze meeting her wide-eyed stare. Of the supercharged air between them zapping like a live electric wire.

She snatched her hand away, hoping her shaking voice wouldn’t clue him in on her now-stuttering heart. “And speak slower. It might sound odd to your ears, but speaking calmly will put your audience at ease.” She intentionally slowed and softened her words. “And you’ll be more relaxed, too.”

She waited for him to argue or make fun, but he only blinked and watched her in the yellowish lantern light. “Thanks. That’s helpful.”

“Oh. You’re welcome.” Being the recipient of his gratitude was new territory. She shook off the urge to blush…and decided to lighten the mood with a subject change. “What are you worried about, anyway? We’re not going anywhere if we don’t find my car keys.”

But the mention of their predicament made the smile on her face turn sickly. She had searched the bedding and bags surrounding them. Marcus half-heartedly helped while whole-heartedly chowing down on her food. Neither of them had found a single sign of her missing keychain. It was like it had vanished into thin air.

“Just picture the audience in their underwear,” she said as she rifled again through her purse, which she’d hurriedly retrieved from outside.

“Will you be in the audience, Lil?” She snapped her head up to find Marcus leaning an elbow on one knee, a wry and damn sexy smile on his face. “Because as I recall, if I win this bet, you have to show up not wearing any…”

Her pulse raced against her throat, and she had to work extra hard to be offended. “I mean…” She shut her eyes to recalibrate her brain. “What I meant was, it’s easier to give a speech if you focus on talking to the people you know. Joanie or Clive…or me.” She returned to digging through her bag, reconsidering. “Or not me. Someone you like.”

“I like you.”

Her heart thudded. Such a simple sentiment, but for some reason, the words hit deep in her gut. Mostly, they teased, but when they worked together, when they had a task they shared, she liked him, too. He must have thought her twisted lips were a show of doubt, because he continued to argue his point.

“What?” He gave her a tender smile, a rarity, and her favorite from his arsenal of expressions. “I do.”

“Oh, okay.” She tossed her handbag aside and tried to get back onto familiar footing with him. “That explains the plastic spiders you’ve been hiding in my desk since we made this bet. Let’s see, one in my paperclips, one on top of my monitor…one on the glass of my scanner.”

“I heard you scream from the other side of the building.” He grinned, inordinately pleased with himself.

She shook her head. Marcus was a lot like having a bratty brother around. He dragged a hand through his cropped hair and chuckled, the flash of his white teeth offsetting the dark shadow of his jaw. Heat flushed her neck.

Maybe “brother” was a poor choice of word.

“I’m not exactly on your top-ten list, either,” he mumbled, leaning back on his forearms. The air-filled bed shifted, and she steadied herself with her hands. “Can’t even get you to act like my date at a company dinner without adding it to the stakes of a bet.”

Despite the easy smile on his face, he sounded almost hurt.

“I– It’s not that.” What was his angle, anyway? Why would he care if the stuffy redhead from work turned him down? His black book was likely thicker than both testaments of the King James Bible. “You’re the one who made it part of the bet rather than ask me outright.”

He pushed himself up and the air in the mattress shifted again, tipping his face close to hers. For a half second, she forgot to breathe. She wasn’t sure what gave him the allure. The casual way he wore his hair, the mischievous spark in his dark eyes, or the way the lantern lit his face, making him look like a boy and a man at the same time.

“I asked you out before. You said you didn’t date your coworkers.”

“I don’t. But that was before…before I knew you.”

He watched her for a few long, sweaty seconds.

She tried not to fidget.

“Would you have said yes if I had asked you recently?”

“You mean if you asked…” She licked her dry lips. “Just…asked?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

He blew out a laugh, his eyebrows jumping.

“I respect our working relationship too much to risk it,” she blurted. She did respect him, but that wasn’t the full truth. The truth was an ex-boyfriend had raked her over the coals. Emmett had used the fact that they’d shared a bed to promote himself and get her fabulously fired. She’d been the brunt of the workplace rumors that’d come with the relationship. Her ex had accused her of lacking ethics, and the pompous assholes running Lawson and Becker had believed him.

Not that she thought for one second Marcus would do the same…but at the time she had been stinging from that recent slap. She hadn’t even told him the real reason she left her former firm. So, yeah, back then, freshly wounded and freshly shit-canned, she’d taken one look at Marcus and concluded that the dark-haired, sexy beast asked out every girl within earshot. It wasn’t hard to guess they had all said yes. Every last one of them. She didn’t want to be one in a string of many. She’d had injuries to lick.

But now, looking at Marcus, she chewed on the side of her lip, wondering if she’d made too many assumptions about him. Assumptions that had stuck, despite her seeing clear evidence refuting them. Like the fact that yes, he used to date a lot when she started, but recently, his numerous dates had waned. He spent late nights at the office almost as often as she did. And when he came in Monday morning, it was he and Clive who talked about hanging out at the Shot Spot playing pool or darts. Hell, at last year’s RSD dinner, his date seemed more like an acquaintance he’d called in a favor with than a girl interested in him.

Huh. She hadn’t really thought about that before.

“You respect me. That’s a new one.” His downturned eyes threw her off. Had she ever seen this man with anything less than 110 percent confidence?

“You don’t need me to get through the dinner anyway,” she said, almost laughing aloud at the idea of him “needing” her for anything at all. The man was talent squared. “Everyone attending knows you’re ten times the designer they are.” That was the truth, and so was the next thing she said. “And you’re twenty times the designer I am on my best day.”

Chapter Seven

He waited for the punch line, but nothing came.

Lily tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She had cute ears.

“Like on the London store¸” she continued. “I sketched the interior of that building at least eighteen times, and I never once thought to position the POS stations throughout the store.”

“Yeah, innovative.”

“Exactly. It was.” She poked his knee with one finger.

The third time she’d touched him tonight. Interesting.

“I was being sarcastic.” Feeling uncharacteristically humble, he added, “Clive helped.”

“With the final layout. But he argued for the traditional placement of the cash registers lined up near the exit. You were the one who insisted customers would be more likely to make impulse purchases if they didn’t have to traipse to the front of the store to check out.”

He vaguely recalled the conversation she referenced. The discussion with Clive hadn’t been a heated one, and not one she should remember so vividly. Which meant she’d been paying attention to him, and he hadn’t even known. How about that? And here he thought all they had in common was that they disagreed on everything.

“You sound like you agree.” The two of them on the same side of an argument was new. Intriguing.

“I do.” She looked at her hands like she was embarrassed. Or maybe she wasn’t sure how to handle them on even ground. He could relate. Compliments weren’t their usual fare.

“While I praise you on your good taste, I can’t take all the credit. The London account was won in the boardroom.” He could picture her standing there, her royal blue suit skimming over her curves, her hair pinned at the back of her head. She’d addressed Reginald with confidence, all while maintaining a smile and including him in the presentation rather than talking at him. “You were amazing in there, Lil.”

“Oh. Um, thanks.” She tipped her chin and blinked, her long, sloping lashes hiding her light blue eyes ever so briefly. “That’s nice.”

“I’m not being nice. I’m telling the truth.”

Her eyes diverted to his mouth, and she licked those soft pink lips. The look she pinned him with next absolutely stunned him. The pursed lips, upturned chin, the way she was leaning toward him the slightest bit… He couldn’t believe it.

Lily McIntire wanted him to kiss her.

Since he had wanted to kiss her since the day he’d met her, he was surprised to find his initial reaction was panic. Instead of closing his mouth over hers like the stud he was, he reacted like a kid with a grade school crush…and play-punched her in the shoulder.

What. The. Fuck?

“Hey.” He cleared his throat intentionally, still unsure what to make of his reaction. “I have an idea.” I’ll abruptly change the subject so I don’t maul you where you sit. “You can, uh”—he scratched his neck and averted his eyes—”do my speech for me.” He shrugged and gave her a cocky smile. “You’ll be like a ghostwriter. Only you’ll be a ghostspeaker.”

Wow. What a freaking reach. What was he so nervous about, anyway? How about because the girl of your dreams is coming onto you?

Yeah, that’d do it. And he’d blown it pretty bad that first time. He did not want a replay of getting shot down in double slow-mo.

The longing ebbed from her expression so gradually, he actually watched it go. Her heart wasn’t in the smile she offered him, and he was hit with the strongest twinge of regret.

She focused on winding the end of the blanket around her fingers, steadfastly changing the subject. “Well, you earned the award, Marcus. I’m sure everyone there will be—”

A crash from the kitchen interrupted whatever good-intentioned compliment she’d been about to pay him. She scrambled away from the sound behind her and across the mattress, practically landing in his lap. Her grip on his left forearm was so tight, he began to lose the feeling in his wrist.

“What was that?” she asked in a hurried whisper.

What it sounded like was someone overturning a china cabinet and emptying teacups, dinner plates, and various other place settings onto the worn wooden floor. From his memory of peering through those windows earlier, there were no dishes in there. And the speaker he’d hidden upstairs to play voices was not equipped with the sound of crashing china.

“I don’t know.” He studied the dark doorway in front of them, now silent in the gloom. He stood and she came with him, still latched to his arm. He placed a hand over both of hers, trying to calm himself and his thundering heart. Not only from the shock echoing through his body, but also from the feel of her smooth skin. “But I’m going to find out.”

She released his arm and half hid behind him as they stepped closer to the kitchen. He reached around and held her against him, keeping her at his back as he listened, his every sense on high alert. He could hear the wind blowing outside, the propane heater humming quietly at his feet, and Lily’s sharp, short breaths over his shoulder. Other than that, the house was still.

An electronic chirp made her yip, and she clutched the sides of his shirt tighter in both fists. “Sorry. My phone alarm.”

He turned and faced her, pulling her hands off him and holding them in his. “Wait here.”

He was supposed to leave her there and do his manly obligation of checking the kitchen, but found he couldn’t move. The way her strawberry-blond hair framed her cherubic face, the way her plush lips parted, made Lily much too tempting to turn away from just yet.

Gripping her chin between his thumb and forefinger, he lowered his head and placed a kiss on the center of her lips. “And calm down.”

…

Earth to Lily.

Marcus disappeared through the doorway of the massive kitchen to confront whoever or whatever was destroying Willow Mansion’s dishware. She knew there wasn’t a single breakable item in there, but she’d heard it, too—the creak of the cabinet doors swinging open, the sound of china shattering into a zillion pieces.

She should be terrified out of her mind. Either nonexistent breakables had been shattered, or she was in need of a psychiatric evaluation. But “terrified” wasn’t her reigning emotion. The predominant feeling was attraction, and it cloaked her in warmth despite the cobwebs and splintered boards at her back.

Marcus Black was an exceptional kisser. He had firm lips, the bottom one slightly larger than the top. His kiss was no more than a peck, but his mouth had hovered over hers long enough for her to conclude that wine tasted a lot better on his lips than from a red Solo cup.

Or maybe she was simply afraid. Fear and attraction had a lot of the same characteristics. The sweaty palms, the elevated heart rate…

The picturing Marcus naked.

Okay, maybe not that last one.

Marcus—not naked—appeared in the doorway so suddenly she had to blink him into focus. His face was drawn and shadowed, but her heart ratcheted up at the sight of him anyway, her eyes automatically locking onto those talented lips of his.

“Grab the Coleman.” His toneless voice snapped her out of her fantasy of being kissed again. “You’ve got to see this.”

She forced her feet forward, lifting the lantern and taking it with her to the adjoining room. He extinguished the small flashlight in his hand when she stepped over the threshold. Holding the lantern high, she swept the light over every corner of the room before turning to him.

“I don’t see anything.”

“Right.” He relieved her of the lantern, his fingers brushing her bare skin and sending a trail of fiery awareness licking up her arm. “Don’t you find that strange?”

She started to answer, and then realized he was referring to the lack of broken dishes and not to the way his touch made her want to purr. Which he couldn’t possibly know about. Thank God.

“No,” she answered belatedly. “I find it fantastic.” Somehow the idea she’d hallucinated the sound—that they both had—was more reassuring than the alternative. Ducking her head into the sand wasn’t her normal habit, but this place was far from normal. And if she had a prayer of not losing her marbles while stuck here, she’d do well to pretend everything was A-okay. They both would.

He lapped the large kitchen one final time, his dark brows pinched. His boots stopped with a soft scuffing sound in front of her, then he lowered the lantern. She studied his brown eyes, choked by thick lashes, and his ink-colored hair tousled over his forehead in the yellowish light and thought of the kiss. How he’d leaned in and taken her lips so confidently. She’d bet he did everything that way. Confidently. Thoroughly.

“Did you hear me?” he asked.

No. I was fantasizing about you.

“Uh, sorry. Zoned out.”

The side of his mouth kicked up, and her heart hammered into her ribs like machine gun fire.

“I asked if you wanted to go back to bed.” He waggled his eyebrows and tipped his head toward the living room. “With me.” He affected his best bad-boy rogue expression. Teasing her again.

He seemed content to ignore whatever they’d heard. Good. She could work with that. “You’re impossible.”

“You can’t get enough of me,” he said as he followed her to the living room.

“You can’t get enough of yourself,” she threw over her shoulder, barely meaning it. She took her place back on the mattress as he set the lantern aside and arranged his big body on the bed next to her. He was quiet for a moment, studying the boards covering the windows in the living room.

“You know,” he said. “There are a lot of old trees out there. I’m thinking the wind caught a rotted limb and brought it down.” He braced his arms around his knees. “Lucky it didn’t come through the roof and kill us.”

The sound they’d heard, as clearly as they both heard Marcus’s explanation now, was not a tree limb. She knew it. He knew it. And she could see that he knew she knew it. But he was explaining it away, possibly for her benefit, before her imagination could turn tail and run away with her on its heels.

Back at base camp, the sound merely an echo in her memory, it was easier to believe a story about felled tree branches. Denial was a powerful, powerful tool, and she had no problem using it to her advantage.

There was one thing she couldn’t deny, however—his insistence on returning to the air mattress to wait out the night with her. He was practically handing over what she had come here to win. Why not talk her into leaving? Why not create a panic and drag her from the house “for her own good”? Why would he sit here with her when he had the most to lose?

Unless…

“I had no idea.”

He still studied the windows. “What’s that?”

“You’re a nice guy.”

Without moving from his seated position—knees pulled up, arms wrapped around them—he turned his head and scrunched his brow in contention. “What?”

She nodded and gave him a smile, sure of her observation. “You leaped out of this room and put yourself in potential danger to protect me.”

“Whatever.” His fingers tapped a distressed rhythm against his jeans. “I walked into the kitchen to check for an ax murderer for myself as much as I did it for you.”

Her smile morphed into a grin. “You mean like one carrying a plastic weapon and wearing a hockey mask?”

He gave her a bland look. “Touché.”

“What was your plan, anyway? Send me running to my car and screaming down the hillside?”

“Basically.”

She shook her head. Maybe he wasn’t all that heroic after all. Yet she was attracted to him. Which could only mean one thing: Marcus didn’t have pheromones like normal men. He emitted something akin to a hallucinogenic drug.

The heater next to them chugged, whined, and died.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” She hit the top. Hit the side. Switched the dials up then down.

“Is this the way you usually fix things? Just bang on them until they’re operational again?”

“Seems to work for the vending machine in the break room.”

He brushed her hands aside and inspected the heater. “This isn’t a glass box withholding your Mallomars.” The Coleman winked out next, plunging the room into darkness.

He swore. She felt like swearing, too.

“I just bought that!” she said instead. So not the issue. She flipped open the cover on her iPad and cast light onto Marcus’s face. It died next. Just went dark, when she knew she had 87 percent battery left.

“What the hell?” He snatched the iPad, and she heard him click the button ineffectually three times before blowing out a frustrated breath.

With the heater silent, the room black, there was only the sound of the wind pressing against the boarded windows keeping them company. Cold, howling wind. Odd. Something was happening in this house and it was so very odd.

Also: terrifying.

“Marcus?” Her voice was a thin thread. She sounded scared. She didn’t care. She was scared, and tired of pretending she had everything under control. Here in the house, and outside of it, too. Being a one-woman army was hard work.

“It’s okay.” His hand found her leg, and she clutched onto him. Marcus’s body shifted, and she heard the clatter of the exhausted Coleman as he slid it aside. He shoved the heater next before leaning to one side and digging in his pocket. He muttered a curse. “My phone’s dead.”

Her phone! Of course. She let go of his hand and felt blindly in the small space until she found her phone. She pressed a button and blessed light flared between them. She examined the screen. “Forty percent battery.”

He took her hand and directed the muted light around the bedding. His firm grip warmed her arm, distracting her from everything else but the feel of his skin against hers.

When he located the flashlight, he flicked it on and off. “Save your battery. We have plenty of light.”

Their eyes met in the pale light emitting from her phone, and she felt the air shift between them, vibrating with a different kind of tension.

The sexy kind.

“We should go to the road,” he said, his voice low. His throat worked as he swallowed. “See if you can get a signal.”

“I have a bet to win. I’m not giving up because it’s dark.”

And she didn’t want to interrupt the heavy tension clinging to the blackness surrounding them. Despite the shadows pressing in on them from every angle, she felt like she was seeing a part of him she’d never seen before. Or maybe seeing him clearly for the first time. Tonight he hadn’t been as selfish and cocky as he pretended to be. The way he looked at her, the way his features softened when his eyes met hers, invited her in.

“Determined to take this from me the way you did that last account, aren’t you?” he teased, his mouth tipping on one side. Regret pinched her now that he’d effectively removed the sexual tension and turned it into the usual argumentative kind.

“Sunny Acres. You really want to fight about this again?” she asked on a disappointed sigh. “You didn’t have a contract with Margaret.”

“No, but I sketched a design she loved.”

Lily picked at an eyelet in her sneaker. The phone went dark, and she dropped it next to her leg. “She didn’t use your design.”

Somehow that truth came easier in the dark.

“Of course she did,” he argued. “She added on the pond and greenhouse, but she said the room idea was perfect.”

She shook her head even though he couldn’t see her, suddenly not wanting to tell him the truth. Which was odd, because the truth—that Margaret had requested an entire redesign by Lily—made for excellent ammo. It was the kind of thing she could have bragged about the next time Marcus one-upped her. But she hadn’t. Each time he poked at her at work, she’d hesitated to rub his nose in it. Why had she done that?

Because. Because of the look on his face the day he’d won the trip. He was in his office alone, slapping the tickets against his open palm. Then he’d stared at them for the longest time, shaking his head, as a proud—not cocky—smile graced his handsome face. In that moment, with his usual veil dropped, she had seen him care about something in a deep, reverent way.

His reaction had caught her off guard as much as it had intrigued her.

Of course, an hour later, he’d plopped down on her guest chair in her office and run down a list of things to do in Hawaii. Ever been snorkeling, McIntire? I think I’ll cliff dive while I’m there. Thanks to my handy-dandy new shed, I have plenty of room for climbing gear and scuba-diving equipment.

A scrape along the boarded windows sounded in front of them and, instinctively, she grabbed for him in the dark.

“See?” he muttered softly. “Trees.”

“Trees,” she agreed. Maybe they’d both overreacted because of the environment. Maybe here, inside a spooky mansion steeped in local lore, everyday sounds were scarier than they actually were.

“Talk to me about something,” he said.

Good idea. She’d talk about anything to get her mind off the ghost of Essie Mae. “Like what?”

“Like why you wanted to go to Hawaii.”

Not what she’d expected. She thought for a moment. “Well. Like you, I’ve never been there. Plus, it’s a free trip…”

But that wasn’t really why she wanted it. That wasn’t the reason she’d worked overtime and gone out of her way to sign more accounts than him.

“The truth is,” she said quietly, “I really like to win.”

His deep laughter tumbled around her in the dark. “Yeah, I get that.”

“And I wanted to see if I was good enough to beat the best.”

She sensed more than heard his head turn.

“You’re the best.” She squeezed his knee. “You’re unbeatable.”

“I don’t know.” One rough hand covered hers, and on a soft rumble he said, “You may beat me yet.”

She sniffed. That may have been a laugh if he hadn’t been touching her. If her heart hadn’t been beating triple time. He slipped his hand beneath hers. Heat from their pressed palms lit a fuse that burned up her arm.

“Lily?”

She couldn’t see his face, but she knew his eyes were on her. She could feel them.

A beat passed. Then another. He flicked the flashlight on, his eyes zooming in on her mouth. “Don’t suppose you’re scared enough of the dark to leave.”

She shook her head. “I don’t suppose you’re planning on leaving me on my own.”

A smile, then, “You might cheat.” He tugged their linked hands and leaned the slightest bit closer.

“True,” she breathed, mirroring his movement. “I wouldn’t trust you if our roles were reversed.” Inches from his face, she admired the curve of his top lip. “What are you doing, Black?”

“I think,” he whispered back, his warm breath fanning over her lips, “I’m going to have to kiss you, McIntire.”