Текст книги "Dare Me"
Автор книги: Stella Rhys
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Chapter Six
Lake
Oz dropped us off in front of a polished, black building in TriBeCa. It looked at least twelve floors, its penthouse wrapped with a sleek, glass balcony. Through it, I could see peeks of garden flowers and saffron umbrellas. It looked nothing like it but reminded me of the penthouse across the street from the townhouse I grew up in with Callum. It was atop one of those shiny new condos and as kids, we used to stare longingly out the window at it. It had a similar balcony and was owned by some older, obscenely wealthy bachelor. At least twice a week, we’d watch him throw lavish parties with cocktail servers handing out flutes of champagne and beautiful people splashing in his enormous pool. One night, we watched him go into his apartment with two willowy girls and leave the blinds open as they climbed into bed.
“I’ll have a penthouse like that someday,” Callum had said. When I snorted, he challenged me. “Wanna bet I will?”
“Sure.”
“What do you want to bet?”
I didn’t actually doubt that he’d become rich on his own and buy a penthouse someday, but the reality seemed so far away that I just smirked and said, “Infinite dares.”
His eyes had lit up like he’d won the jackpot in Vegas. “I’m holding you to that.”
“Go ahead.”
I wanted to smile when I thought about how long ago that was. His voice hadn’t even changed yet and he was the same height as me, our eyes at the same exact level. Riding the elevator in silence, indeed to the penthouse floor, I studied Callum. He was still rigid, drying blood off his knuckles. He was decided about avoiding my gaze. I couldn’t help wondering what was about to happen. Whether he remembered that conversation we had in seventh grade and how much of us he had really managed to forget.
I didn’t stop wondering, especially as he led me out of the elevator and directly into his sprawling apartment. It screamed of his taste – spacious, neat and modern with dark hardwood floors as polished and shiny as the floor-to-ceiling windows that made up most of the wall space. He clicked a button on a remote to bring the blinds down. My breath shortened as I watched him lift his chin and pinch the knot of his tie. His eyes finally settled on me as he loosened the black silk. A chill licked over my skin when he yanked it off his neck with the sound of a whip.
“You’re not staying at Isabel’s anymore,” he broke the silence evenly. “You’re staying here from now on.”
I wasn’t going to argue. I just wanted to know why. “And the reason for that is?”
“It’s not a good idea for you to be there. I know Nick and Theo and they’re both going to want to talk to you after tonight, whether it’s to harass you or apologize, and they have all the access they want to you if you’re there. They’ll waltz right into that apartment with their dad living there, so to keep you out of the line of fire, you’re staying here.”
I nodded, watching him lay the tie out on the back of a leather chair. “I take it we’re nixing this whole forgetting that we ever existed thing.”
Callum’s eyes were none too amused as he looked at me. “Yes.”
I waited for him to elaborate but he didn’t. I took time to muster up the courage for what I was about to say. “You know I want to be near you, Callum. All the time. But I won’t stay here if you’re not actively trying.”
“Trying what?”
“To forgive me. I don’t want to stay and be a burden that’ll make you increasingly bitter. I want to know that while I’m here, you’ll be trying to give me a second chance. I’m still me, Callum. I’m still the same girl you grew up with and I know it’s going to take time for us to be us again but it’s better than giving up before we start. We’ll just have to work on it. Actively.” My tone was steady despite the nerves ravaging my stomach throughout my speech. I was confident in what I had to say – it was just the way Callum looked that was making my heart pound. His blue eyes burned through me as I stood in the very middle of his sprawling apartment, smack dab in between the foyer, the kitchen and the living room. The longer the silence went on, the more I felt like I was stranded at sea, floating farther away from him, losing more and more hope.
But then his voice echoed through the room. “And what do you suggest we actively do?”
I sucked my bottom lip in as I thought about it. I wasn’t sure if he was mocking me but I was in too deep to be self-conscious. So I went for it. “We can play the game.”
“The game,” he repeated as if I were a child. I refused to lose confidence.
“Yes. It’s the epitome of us. And it’s obviously going to take time before we can just talk to each other the way we used to. But at least this’ll help us slowly chip away at whatever’s between us right now. Whatever it is, I know I put it there, Callum. I take responsibility for that. So I’m telling you right now that I will do whatever it takes for you to trust me again. But that requires you to try, too.”
“Fine.” He agreed all too easily. “Truth or dare.”
“Dare.”
The hollows of his cheeks flexed. “Tell me everything that happened between the day you left and the day you came back.”
I paused, almost too afraid to correct him. It was silent for a moment. “First rule, Callum,” I murmured. “No daring out truths. You know that. But I’ll do everything else.”
He was silent. Livid. I locked my knees as flames burst behind his eyes and I waited for him to tell me to get out – that he had tried to give me my second chance but I’d made it impossible for him by choosing to keep the biggest wall up. I waited to hear that he was done with me. Truly and officially done with me. But then he spoke again.
“Fine.” He kept his frosty glare pinned tight on me. There was no expression on his face, no tone in his voice, but I could almost feel the spite fill the air as his lips parted to speak. “Then you’re going to take your clothes off for me.”
I blinked. “What?”
“That’s your dare. You said you were still the same Lake. Take your clothes off and let me see.”
I stared at him. It was my turn for silence. But he stood there resolute, waiting for me with intimidating patience. I refused to let myself hesitate for more than another second, so reaching behind my back, I found the zipper of my strapless dress. I kept my eyes on him as I pulled it down, sucking in a sharp breath as I felt the cold air of his apartment blast the skin on my back. His eyes dipped to the tan lace of my bra as my bodice fell forward, crumpling to my waist. I pushed the rest of it down my hips and my thighs till it fell around my nude heels. Stepping out, I lightly kicked my dress aside. My heart was slamming in my chest as I looked back up at Callum, standing for him in just my bra and panties as he leaned back on his heels. His expression was controlled but his glinting eyes devoured me. He slid his hands in his pockets with a short demand.
“Go on.”
I wasn’t naked enough for his liking. Reaching behind my back for my bra, I tried not to look turned on for fear that Callum would be sick enough to cut this short if he knew I didn’t hate it. Because I didn’t. I went as far as to enjoy it because I could see the flickering in Callum’s eyes and it reminded me of how we grew up answering our questions by exploring each other’s bodies. It started with innocence but ended with anything but. We bared our skin and souls for each other. It was what we always did.
His patience wore thin as my fingers caught on the hooks of my bra. “Faster.” His tone awakened my attitude.
“You do it then.”
He came right to me. I held my breath as he stood in front of me, eyes locked on mine as he circled a hand behind my back and unsnapped the clasp with ease. He made no contact with my skin. I barely felt him but I felt my breasts tighten as my bra fell to my feet. Callum’s stare remained on mine as I pushed my panties down and stepped out of them too.
“Shoes?”
“Keep them on,” he said, holding his stare for a moment. Then, finally, he took a step back to take me in. I breathed jaggedly as his hungry eyes traveled unblinkingly across my shoulders and down to my breasts. My hair covered them and I waited for him to tell me to move it but he didn’t. Instead, his gaze moved slowly down the line of my stomach before settling on my right hipbone.
My scar. I blushed as he came forward to study it. It was faint but it was still there and I felt my lip quiver as I watched Callum remember how I got it.
“I told you to jump to the left.”
“I know.”
We were silent, the same pictures of blue sky and clear water running through our heads. I knew we were both recalling exactly when and where I’d gotten that scar. It was during a vacation in St. Barts, with Callum, Caroline and my grandmother, Elena. We were fifteen. Callum had just dislocated his shoulder during wrestling so when he spotted a gorgeous thirty-plus-foot cliff, he dared me to jump off of it for him. My pride refused to let me back out. I always ached to prove that I was just as good as he was – just as good as any of them. But I psyched myself out on the edge and because of that, I forgot Callum’s advice to go left when I finally jumped.
Every second in the air had been pure, exhilarating bliss but I shrieked in pain when I landed. Not from the impact with water but from the jagged rock scraping my entire right side. I muffled the sound with my hand but Callum heard it and in seconds, against doctor’s orders, had jumped right in after me. “I told you to jump to the left!” I could hear him shouting it again, so angry but worried about me as he wrapped his bad arm around my waist and swam us to shore. I could’ve limped back to the villas but he refused to let me. He carried me the whole way and as I bled on him, he went back and forth between cursing me out and murmuring into my hair that I was fine, that I did awesome and everything was going to be okay.
He took the fall when both my grandmother and Caroline screamed at me for doing something so dangerous. I cried my eyes out because while I was used to it with Elena, Caroline never yelled at me. I was her perfect girl. So Callum spent that night with me in the villa, taking care of me and keeping me distracted with funny stories about Theo and Logan and the shitty things they did to the other guys in the locker room after wrestling.
By the time we were home, the only scar I had left from that ordeal was on my hip. And in the years that I was away, I grew kind of grateful for it. There was something oddly comforting about looking down and seeing a memory of Callum marked onto my body. I liked carrying it with me wherever I went. It was my reminder that we once existed.
See? I stared at him. Still the same Lake.
Callum caught my look as I recalled the memory. My eyes were wet, brimming with tears for the way we were but I didn’t let them fall. I stood there and waited for his next request. “Move your hair,” he finally said, standing squarely in front of me.
I did as I was told, the backs of my hands brushing my thick waves past my shoulders. As I cleared the view for him, Callum’s eyes fixed on my breasts. I watched his mouth part just slightly, the tip of his tongue wetting the inner part of his bottom lip. His gaze traced the shape of each full mound, his head shaking so slightly I barely noticed it. I knew he was mesmerized and yet he still wouldn’t let himself touch me. He hadn’t touched me once since I’d come back and it was starting to drive me insane. I’d missed it so much. It felt like I’d been waiting a couple different lifetimes to feel it again.
“Lift your hands in the air,” he demanded.
I didn’t question. I arched my back and crossed my arms behind my head, my elbows pointed at the ceiling. I was a million times more naked in that position, tits lifted up and pushed out for Callum’s eyes to feast on. It felt vulnerable, erotic. I was bared naked for him, my breathing short and ragged, bouncing my breasts in a way that demanded his unyielding attention, no matter how hard he tried to fight it. Callum was silent but I knew he was swallowing hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing as my bare chest rose and fell with each hard breath. I could taste the thick air between us as he came forward to me, his eyes filled with intent. The closer he came, the tighter his body stiffened. I wet my lips, watching his shirt stretch taut over his broadening chest.
And then he touched me.
I let out a faint moan as his warm hands brushed my skin to cup the bottoms of my breasts, his fingers spreading wide to form over their size. I soaked in the heavy sound of his arousal as he let himself squeeze, soft at first but then harder and harder till he let out a throaty groan. “Fuck,” Callum hissed. He bounced the weight of my breasts in his hands. His tongue lolled as he watched my nipples pebble for him. They ached to feel his lips wrap around them and he knew it so he stared for a predatory second. Arms still over my head, my fingers dug into my hair.
Take it. Please. Take what you want. I was ready to tell him but he did it without me. I gasped as he jerked my waist, arching my back like a bow. My hair spilled like a waterfall as he presented my tits for his mouth. They begged for him, as close as they could possibly be without touching his lips. Please, please, pretty please. The hot air he breathed onto my peaks blasted me with sensation that shot straight to my core. My skin spread with unbearable heat as I waited for the relief of his mouth, his lips, his tongue. I could see it, practically feel it ready and watering, just waiting to claim me. I didn’t need him to be gentle – I just needed him to take my body and treat himself to whatever he wanted.
However he wanted.
But with a curled lip, he tore away.
Fuck! My eyes fell shut. I shattered to silent pieces as his hands promptly went elsewhere. They traveled with a purpose to my ribcage, running down my side and stopping at the third bone down from my breast. Yes. I opened my eyes and the breath hitched in my throat as his right thumb ran over the little tattoo usually covered by my arm. I watched his wolfish gaze move over the black ink – the promise I had made to him a year before I left.
We were twenty years old and so fiercely in love.
So we’d decided to get tattoos of each other’s names on our bodies. Mine on his, his on mine, both in the same spot. They warned me how it would hurt but I liked that it was the rib right next to my heart, so they started. And ten seconds into the needle on bone, I passed right out. Embarrassingly enough, the pain was too excruciating for me to get past the letter “C.” So Callum left his at just “L,” but not without teasing me. When I said I’d have it finished someday, he laughed and said he didn’t believe me. So I made the promise that on my next birthday, I’d have the tattoo completed. “Yeah? No matter how much it hurts?”
“No matter what happens. Even if I lose consciousness.”
He laughed. “That’s crazy. But I dare you to do it.”
“I know. And I accept.” It was appropriate. My love for him was crazy and his love for me was the same. So I swore I would do it and he followed suit.
I’d already disappeared from New York by the time I turned twenty-one but at a parlor near Richmond, despite the fact that Callum had no clue where I was, I’d gotten the remaining five letters inked. They hurt like hell so I felt a sense of pride as his fingers traced them now. C-A-L-L-U-M. Every letter burned into me forever, just like the scar on my hip. The only difference was that this scar had been a choice. The balance represented us well. Neither Callum nor I chose each other. We were thrust into one another’s lives. But we loved each other so hand in hand, we chose to fight every hurtle flung our way. We’d been apart for awhile by the time I had my tattoo finished but I’d sat through it convinced that it was part of my fight to stay close to him – to prove to myself that when it was safe, I’d return to him.
“You really did it.”
“I promised I would,” I murmured as he touched the letters. I felt so damned satisfied about the disbelief in his eyes that I forgot about his end of the promise. Suddenly, I backed away. Callum gave a quizzical look but I stared into him. “Let me see yours.”
Standing straight, his lips became a hard line.
“Take your shirt off, Callum.” I shook my head at him because I already knew. “Let me see,” I demanded, the words barely escaping my tight throat. “At least let me fucking see,” I pleaded angrily, the tears coming back.
He finally obliged. And naked before him, I did my best not to sob. But as he shrugged off his jacket and undid his shirt, I saw the body he’d built while I was gone. I saw his carved chest and the lines of his abs a hundred times deeper than the last time I’d seen them. He looked so distinctly different and so strikingly beautiful it hurt. Ink coiled and lashed over his smooth skin, curling around his thick biceps and forearms. It was completely unfamiliar. Once upon a time, I’d been the only tattoo on his body.
“Lift your arm, Callum.” My voice trembled hard. I hated how it sounded, hated that it would only sound worse once I confirmed it. The tears spilled when I did.
While I’d turned the “C” on my rib to his full name, he’d had my “L” covered up completely. Turned it into a set of Roman numerals to effectively erase me. Eradicate any signs of me from his body. I proudly had the scar on my hip, the tattoo on my rib. Callum had nothing and he had nothing for me as I cried in front of him. For once, he was able to stand there, firmly unaffected by my despair. The back of my wrist tried shutting up the pathetic sounds coming out of my mouth. But it failed. It wasn’t just the ink now, it was everything – every hurt and ache and fruitless fight of the past six years hurling at me like rocks. The pain of the needle all those years ago was nothing compared to what I felt now.
“Lake,” Callum finally started but I didn’t want to hear it.
“I need to go to sleep,” I exhaled fast.
I was sinking into that quicksand again, returning to that dark place where it was true – where I was worthless. A burden and a curse who loved people more than they ever loved me. As I followed Callum to my room, I tried to tell myself to sleep it off. That I was fine and I somehow had the strength in my fractured heart to do this – to stay not just in New York but in the home of the man who’d gladly forgotten me when I only lived because of his memory.
Chapter Seven
Callum
Heads up Theo’s looking for her.
Logan’s 7AM text made for a sufficiently rude awakening. I’d fallen asleep just a half hour before, having tossed and turned all night like a restless grab bag of guilt, fury and irritation. I hated seeing her cry. I hated that I was the reason for her tears. I loathed myself for being an unfeeling prick yet I indulged myself in jerking off to the memory of how she stripped down naked for me. From head to toe, Lake was the most beautiful thing I’d ever laid eyes on and I couldn’t stop wondering who’d been lucky enough to touch her in the years she was gone. I wondered if he had treated her right and I knew that whatever job he’d done with pleasing her, I could’ve done it a thousand times better. It took hours for my blood to stop rushing, for my cock and my mind to come down enough to get some rest.
But then Logan’s text came and I was wide-awake and seething. I jumped out of bed, suddenly compelled to make sure Lake was still safely tucked in her bed in my guest room. My heart jumped damned near out of my chest when I opened the door to see her bed empty. But then I heard the water running downstairs in the kitchen.
I found Lake there in the T-shirt I’d given her to sleep in. I watched from the top of the stairs as she stood before my glass-front fridge, staring at the contents that I had neatly lined up like inanimate soldiers. She kept grabbing the handle of the door only to let it go, over and over without opening the fridge though I knew she was desperate to eat. She used to bounce on her toes and sigh when she was hungry. Apparently, she still did.
“You’re kidding me, right?” I finally asked, making her jump. She spun around and looked all over before finding me at the top of the steps. Her morning hair was so fucking sexy it was annoying.
“What?”
I got down there and started the espresso machine. “Take what you want. Since when were you apologetic about that?”
Falling quiet, she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “I don’t live here, Callum. This isn’t my home. My grandma and your mother raised me so I do know what manners are and I’m pretty sure you don’t just go taking things that aren’t yours.”
“That’s rich coming from you.”
Her shoulders slumped. I expected her to retort with something smart but she said nothing. I was almost disappointed.
“Lake. I’m giving you permission to eat whatever you want in my kitchen.”
“Thank you.”
The quiet relief with which she spun around and opened my fridge actually depressed me. Drinking my coffee, I watched, predicting she’d go straight for the Fage. She did. Peeled it and gave one clean lick of the yogurt stuck to the top before tossing the wrapper in the trash. Some things never change.
“What?” She frowned when I smirked.
I ignored her question. I grabbed my coffee then slid a spoon across the table. “To counter what you said before, you do live here.”
“Right. But it’s not my home.”
“And why do you say that.”
She paused, looking at me with true confusion. “I… don’t pay rent here?”
“Neither do I. I own.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s great, Callum, and not my point. I mean I live here in the same way I’d live in a hotel on vacation. I would be staying there, it would be my home base for that time, but it wouldn’t be my home. The same way this is not my home.”
I laughed without smiling. “So you have intentions of leaving.” I took a drink. “Again.”
She was instantly defensive. “No, I – ”
“If you’re not going anywhere else, you’re not living with anyone else. I’m the closest person to you in this city and this is as permanent of a situation as you’re going to have. You’re moving in and you’ll be living with me. Unless you have other preferences, that’s what I’ve decided.” My morning had been sleepless but not unproductive. I leaned against the counter and studied the way she slowly wet her lips. “Would you like to consider this your home?”
She didn’t answer right away, playing with the neck of her T-shirt. Rather, my T-shirt. My favorite one that she was actively stretching the collar of but I let her do it. “Yes,” she finally muttered. “More than anything.”
“Then it’s settled,” I said. She nodded but sucked in her bottom lip, which meant she was being quiet about something. I rolled my eyes. “Lake, whatever you’re thinking, just say it, for Christ’s sake.”
She exhaled hard and put her food down. “Fine. What is this?”
“Yogurt.”
“Not that, Callum.” I laughed inwardly, taking too much pleasure in the way her voice sounded between her gritted teeth. “This. Me living here. This being my home. We have a history I can’t exactly put into words but I would go as far as to say that we were romantic so, what, are we together right now? Am I going to be sleeping in that room and listening to you bring other girls home and fuck them down the hall from me or are we trying to do something here? The two of us?”
I took a moment, soaking in the sudden heat that flushed her gorgeous face. I hadn’t expected for her to snap back as quickly and truthfully as she did but I liked it. It was the Lake I knew and it made me want to grab her and suck her bottom lip into my mouth. It also made me wish I had some sort of clean-cut answer for her. But there was none. “I hadn’t put much planning into that aspect.”
She shot daggers. “Christ, Callum, talk to me like I’m a person, not a business pitch. I know you grew up and got all fancy while I was gone but I’m still me. I do recall proving that to you yesterday.”
I glared but otherwise didn’t show my irritation at her accusing tone. “I answered you as truthfully as I could, Lake,” I replied. “Plain and simple, I didn’t think about it. What I thought about was making sure you had a good, comfortable place to stay. I thought about what a piece of shit I felt like for making you cry. I thought about how fucking beautiful you were and how much I missed every inch of you. That it was probably pointless for me to try and ignore you or resist you.” I took a sick satisfaction in how instantly quiet she went, how she shrunk back when I stepped forward. I spoke slowly, evenly, watching my every word sink into her skin. “Trust me. I’m still pissed at you. I still hate with all my heart that you’re keeping these secrets about why you left and where you went. But it’s physically impossible for me not to care about you when I know you’re back and close enough to me that I can touch you if I want, so this is where we’re at, Lake. You’re living here, I know you’re safe, I know you’re provided for and I’m ‘actively trying’ like you asked me to. I’m trying to get us back to us but I don’t know exactly how that works and unless I’m mistaken, neither do you, so I’d venture a guess and say that this is called taking it a day at a time.”
Lake’s mouth snapped shut halfway through my answer and pursed tight. Now it curled just the slightest at me. She swallowed what looked like a bit of pride. It got me strangely hard. “Fine.”
I crinkled my brow. “Is it fine?”
“Yes, Callum, it’s fine,” Lake enunciated. She finally took her spoon and started at her breakfast. It was silent for a good minute as she avoided my stare. “Stop looking at me,” she finally said.
“I’m making up for lost time.”
“Okay, you can’t do that every day,” she pointed her spoon at me and the corners of her lips quivered as we straddled the line of a light or tense moment. I cracked a smile and she let out a laugh filled with relief. “Callum! You cannot guilt me every day. Please. That’s not fair.”
“It actually seems pretty fair to me.”
“No. Stop it.” She stared decidedly back into her yogurt. “Stop looking at me.”
“Fine. But I think it’s time for me to remind you that you once bet I’d never buy my own penthouse.” I grinned as Lake lifted her head slowly. Something about the doe-eyed look she gave me revived my morning wood from zero to sixty. Or rather, forty to sixty. “If I’m not allowed to guilt you, maybe I’ll take you up on those infinite dares. You know. Just to get out my aggression.”
“That would be dangerous, Callum.”
“We’ve always been into that.” She bit back her dirty smile and suddenly that need to suck her lip was painfully strong. “Like you said, Lake. Let’s play the game.”
“Well, it’s my turn.”
“I don’t think you get one anymore.”
“Oh God.” She groaned up at the ceiling but I could see her sexy mouth curving up with amusement. “Fine. Dare.”
“I haven’t thought of a good one yet,” I smirked as my phone rang. “What’s up, Oz.”
“How’s the hand!” The volume of his voice assaulted my eardrums. I looked down at my hand.
“Forgot about it till now.” I’d been happy to bruise my knuckles on Nick’s jaw all night till he called Lake a whore, at which point I stupidly went for a mouth shot. He stayed on the floor after that one, which was probably better if he was interested in looking for his teeth, but it wasn’t the greatest move on my part in terms of keeping my skin in tact. “It’s fine,” I said, assessing the damage. Not my worst.
“Good. We need your handsome whisky grip camera-ready tonight.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Just got a call from the Times. They’re sending a photographer to The Pike tonight. They want some pictures of us for the article. Dressed nice with friends, they said. Laughing, drinking, having a grand old time. I’m sure we can give them at least an hour of sober smiles.”
“I can swing that. I have my doubts about you.”
“Eh, if I’m going to put on a suit and act sober for anyone I figure it’ll be for them.”
“Good to hear.” It was a big opportunity for us. The Times’ magazine was set to run an article on Oz, myself and Pike Scotch. One of their writers had reached out after attending a tasting. They wanted a story behind the company and the two hundred-year-old distillery I’d renovated with Oz. It was the type of mainstream exposure that could turn a brand into a staple and I was hell-bent on making sure it went perfectly.
“What’s up?” Lake asked when I hung up the phone.
“There’s a thing tonight.”
“Vague.”
“At The Pike. You don’t know what that is because you’ve been gone for six years.”
“Again with the guilting.”
I smirked. “I’m going to need you to wear a nice dress.”
“I don’t have one that isn’t covered in tequila and Nick Spencer drool.”
I winced as I finished my coffee. “There are solutions to that. Once you’re done with breakfast, I’ll be taking you shopping.”
She lifted her eyebrows with surprise. “You always hated shopping.”
“I always hated finding what I needed and then waiting four hours for you and my mother to. That’s not the kind of shopping we’re going to be doing today.”
“No?”
“No.” My eyes slid up her body as she leaned forward on the counter. Whatever look I had on my face made her grin. “I have a feeling today’s going to be a lot more fun for me.”
