Triple Dare

by Regina Kyle

  “Before what?”

  Before I kiss every single inch of you. Before I make us both come so hard we forget our own names. Before everything changes between us.

  “Before this.” He wanted to yank her to him and crush his mouth to hers, but instinct told him Ivy was a girl who appreciated a slow, steady seduction. So he took his time as long as his amped-up body would let him, nibbling at the corners of her mouth and coaxing her lips open with his tongue. The hand on her back rubbed small circles along her spine, and she folded into him, entangling her legs with his.

  Her surrender shattered his control, and he rolled them over, pinning her to the bed. With one hand, he took her by the wrists and brought her arms up over her head so she could reach the headboard. “Grab on.”

  “Bossy, aren’t we?” Her fists closed around the metal bars.

  “Something like that.” He reached over her to grab one of the condoms she’d deposited on the nightstand, ripped open the packet and rolled it on.

  “I’m at your mercy.” She flashed him a saucy smile and arched her back, thrusting her breasts up and inviting him to touch, taste and enjoy. “What now?”

  “Now,” he whispered against her lips, his breath mingling with hers, “we both get off.”

  Cade closed the slight distance between their mouths, and for the next few minutes there wasn’t a lot of talking with the exception of a few “pleases,” “mores” and “oh, Gods.” She writhed under him, her lush softness rubbing against his impossibly hard cock. Christ, it felt like he could pound nails. Fortunately, he had a much more pleasant alternative in mind, one Ivy’s frustrated movements said she was totally on board with.

  He pried his mouth from hers. “Can’t wait.”

  “Don’t want you to.” She tightened her grip on the headboard and spread her legs.

  She was hot and wet and he was in her so fast he had to grit his teeth and run through the alarm codes to stop himself from coming immediately. Ten-one: call quarters. Ten-two: return to quarters. Ten-three: call dispatch...

  “Cade,” she moaned, snapping him out of his mental catalog.

  “Say it again,” he growled on another thrust.

  “What?” She looked up at him, her eyes flaring, the pupils dark and shining.

  “My name.” He plunged into her again, slower, deeper, and he felt her muscles flutter and clench around him, sucking him in even further, holding him tighter. “I like how you say it when I’m inside you.”

  “Cade.” She knotted her legs around his back, rolling her hips to meet each slick, steady stroke. “Please. I’m going to come.”

  “Do it.” He pressed his lips to the sleek column of her neck, planting openmouthed kisses from her jaw to the cleft between her breasts. She tasted like she smelled, sweet and sunny. For a brief, terrifying moment he wondered if he’d ever get enough of her.

  She shook her head, scattering her wild curls. “Not alone.”

  “You won’t.” He swiped a nipple with his tongue. Yep. Still sweet. Still sunny. Still not enough. “This time we go together.”

  “Need to touch you.” She rattled the headboard, pleading with passion-filled eyes for him to give her permission to free her hands.

  “Hell, yes,” he hissed, sending a puff of air over her damp nipple. It sprang to attention, and he took it between his teeth, flicking it hard and fast with his tongue.

  She released her grip on the bars and circled his neck, her nails digging into his shoulders, pressing him to her chest. “So good.”

  “Right there.”

  “Like that.”

  “I’ve got you.” He raised himself up from his elbows to his palms, the muscles of his arms and back straining as he continued to move within her. “Let go.”

  “You, too.” Ivy’s voice came out on a tremble.

  “God, yes.” His was equally shaky.

  As if his admission was a trigger, her body went taught, arcing beneath him as she cried out his name. He followed her into sweet oblivion, his release overwhelming him, rushing through him with the power of a back draft.

  Ivy squeezed him tighter, her arms and legs holding him in a vise grip as he erupted. When he was finally spent, he rolled to his back, wrapping his arms around her and taking her with him.

  He lay there in stunned silence, unable to speak, not knowing what to say if he could. The enormity of it came at him with the same force as his orgasm.

  He’d just had the most raw, intense, soul-melting sex of his life.

  With his best friend’s sister.

  And that fact left him with one burning question.

  What now?

  “Ivy.”

  Cade whispered her name again and shook her shoulder, but his efforts were met with silence. She nestled into him, her eyes closed, the curve of her red-brown lashes resting against her pale cheeks, her breathing deep and even.

  Asleep.

  He tried not to be offended. She must be exhausted, and not just from the mind-numbing sex. It wasn’t every day she almost burned a house down and had to be rescued by the fire department.

  His body relaxed and his arms curled protectively around her. There would be time enough for him to leave before morning. Right now she needed to sleep.

  And he needed to figure out where the hell they went from here.

  * * *

  SUNLIGHT STREAMED THROUGH the window across Cade’s face and chest. He raised an arm to shield his eyes and met something soft, warm and yielding.

  Something that felt suspiciously like a female breast.

  A smile played around the corners of his lips as memories of the night before came rushing back. Ivy under him, over him, gasping, breasts heaving, auburn curls splayed out around her like a halo. Calling his name when she came—twice—in a way that made his heart twist.

  Then it hit him. Sunlight.

  He’d stayed the night.

  He never stayed the night.

  He wasn’t a complete jerk. He didn’t fuck and run. He was all for a good postorgasm cuddle and maybe even round two after he’d had time to recover. But he made it a rule to be gone before sunrise. Less drama that way. Fewer expectations. And no chance of commitment. No chance he’d wind up in a relationship like his parents, so absorbed in each other—or their research—that they barely had time to acknowledge the world around them, including their own child.

  But with Ivy he’d stayed for the cuddle, round two and the morning after. He should be panicked, jumping out of bed, grabbing his clothes and bolting for the door.

  But he wasn’t.

  Instead, he was reaching for her again, the hand on her breast gently squeezing, his thumb brushing across her nipple.

  What was wrong with him? Or was it that something was finally right?

  “Mmm.” Ivy stirred, rolling toward him and draping one leg over his thigh.

  “You awake?” he asked, his breath stirring the hair at her temple.

  “Must be dreaming,” she murmured.

  “No.” He smiled against her cheek. “No dream. I’m right here. In the flesh.”

  He slid his mouth to hers and she shot upright, almost knocking him off the bed.

  “What’s wrong?” He raised himself up on his elbows and looked at her through eyes still heavy with sleep.

  “I need to brush my teeth,” she said, clapping a hand over her mouth and struggling to untangle herself from the sheets. “And my hair must look like a rat’s nest.”

  “I like the way you look in the morning.” Natural. Glowing. Satiated. His chest puffed with pride at the thought that he was responsible for the satiated part. “And it’s not like I’m brushing my teeth, so don’t sweat it.”

  He reached for her, but she rolled away.

  “Two minutes.” She stood, giving him a nice view of her very shapely, very naked ass as she crossed the room. “I’ll be right back.”

  His eyes narrowed and his cock twitched with appreciation as he watched her retreating backside. He would’ve ta
ken her for a wrap-herself-up-in-the-bedsheets kind of girl. He’d never been so glad to be wrong in his life.

  “I’ll be here.”

  The words felt strange but at the same time comfortable. Cade flopped down, arms crossed behind his head, to wait not-so-patiently. He was debating whether to go after her and get things started with a little shower action when the familiar, tinny strains of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” sounded from somewhere on the floor near the side of the bed.

  He rolled over, reached down and fumbled for his pants. Pulling his cell out of the back pocket, he swiped the screen, not bothering to look at the display.

  “Hardesty.”

  “Hey, man. You busy? I need a favor.”

  Gabe. Shit. So much for the shower.

  “What’s up?”

  “I’m at my parents’. Devin and my mom are going over the wedding plans.”

  “And this concerns me how?”

  “You gotta rescue me. If I hear the words place setting, nosegay or fondant one more time, I’m going to scream. I should have listened to Devin when she wanted to elope to Vegas. But I knew it’d break my mother’s heart if her only son ran off and got married without her.”

  “You want me to come over there and kidnap you?”

  “Nothing that drastic. Just meet me at Maude’s for breakfast in ten. My treat.”

  Cade groaned inwardly. The last thing he wanted to do was break bread with the guy whose sister he’d just spent the better part of the last twelve hours screwing. But that guy was also his best friend, and the bro code dictated that friends always had each other’s back. No exceptions.

  Of course, the bro code also said you weren’t supposed to bang your best friend’s sister.

  Looked like he was batting .500.

  He threw off the sheet, sat up and groped for his boxers. “Make it thirty.”

  “Thirty it is,” Gabe said, the relief in his voice coming through as clear as crystal. “Thanks, man.”

  Ivy came back just as Cade was shrugging on his shirt. She’d tamed her hair—or tried to—and thrown on a robe, some of her modesty apparently returning in the harsh light of day. Her face fell at the sight of him almost fully dressed, making him feel like the biggest jerk on the face of the planet.

  “You’re leaving,” she said simply.

  He was tempted to lie and say it was work. But he’d never lied to her when they were friends, and he didn’t want to lie to her now that they were...whatever they were. “Yeah, sorry. I got this call...”

  She waved him off. “You don’t have to explain. I knew what this was going in.”

  “That makes one of us.” He dropped the sneaker in his hand and sat on the bed, his mission to bail out Gabe momentarily forgotten. “Tell me, what exactly do you think happened here last night?”

  She went to the closet and rummaged through it, tossing aside clothes as she went. “We scratched an itch.”

  Her voice was light and her movements casual, but he wasn’t buying it. He’d known her too long and too well to miss the signs. The too-broad smile trying unsuccessfully to hide the shadow behind her eyes.

  She was hurting. And he was the one who’d hurt her.

  Fuck.

  “Ivy.”

  A little black dress flew over her shoulder. He squeezed his eyes shut, fighting the image of it hugging her curves.

  “Ivy.”

  The dress was joined by a skirt.

  Cade came up behind her, spun her around and plucked a blouse out of her hands. “Stop.”

  “I told you, you don’t have to explain. I get it. We had our fun, but now it’s done.”

  “Says who?”

  “Huh?”

  “Who says our fun has to be done?” He tossed the blouse onto the bed and reached out to cup her cheek, rubbing his thumb along her jawline. “What if I get another itch?”

  She shrugged off his hand. “I’m sure you’ll find someone else to scratch it.”

  “What if it’s an itch only you can scratch?”

  “Stop messing with me.” She took a step back, and he followed, keeping her close.

  “I’m not messing with you.” Cade put his hands on her hips, drawing her to him. “Look, I know you’re only here on loan. And pretty soon you’ll be back to your fabulous, jet-setting life. But we’re both adults, right? Why not enjoy each other while we can?”

  Ivy bit her lip, hesitating, and for an agonizing minute Cade wondered if he’d made a colossal mistake. Then she relaxed against him, and he breathed a relieved sigh.

  “You mean you want to keep doing...whatever it is we’re doing?”

  “Hell, yeah.” He grinned. It was damned adorable how she couldn’t quite bring herself to put a name to their extracurricular activities. “Don’t you?”

  “Won’t it get...weird?”

  “Not if we don’t let it,” he insisted. “And we won’t.”

  “Now I’m confused.” She shook her head, her curls spilling around her shoulders. “If you’re not running from me, then why are you running?”

  “I’m not.”

  She started to protest, but he stopped her with a quick, hard kiss. “At least not voluntarily. Your brother called and asked me to meet him at Maude’s. Devin and your mom are talking shoes and rice, and he needed a break. I couldn’t very well tell him I’d rather spend the day in bed with his sister.”

  “Hmm.” She nodded thoughtfully, one side of her mouth curling into a half smile. “I see your problem.”

  “How about a do-over?” The hands on her hips tightened, pulling her flush against him. “Like maybe tonight?”

  “A do-over?” She smirked. “What are we, back in middle school?”

  “What I’ve got planned is way beyond the limits of my impressionable, prepubescent mind.”

  “God, you’re incorrigible.”

  “And by incorrigible you mean irresistible, right?” He waggled his brows at her.

  “Yes, damn you.” She gave him a little push. “Go. Have breakfast with my brother. I should get to the nursery anyway. If someone’s not watching Dad, he’ll probably do something crazy, like try to move twenty cubic yards of mulch by himself.”

  “So we’re good?” Cade asked, releasing her.

  “We’re good.” Ivy started for her closet again but stopped after a couple of steps and turned back to him, the tiny creases in her forehead telling him something was still bothering her. He didn’t have to wait long to find out what it was. “We’re going to keep this between us, right? The last thing I need is my family thinking we’re an item.”

  “Fine by me. I’m not sure I’d be able to look Gabe in the eye if he knew we’d been...” Cade scratched his chin, grasping for a more Ivy-friendly phrase than “doing the nasty.” Bumping uglies? Getting it on? “...intimate. Never mind your father.”

  “So we’re agreed. We keep things quiet and casual.”

  “Quiet and casual,” he repeated, sitting on the bed again and reaching for the sneaker he’d discarded.

  Just what he needed after the mess with Sasha.

  He hoped.

  8

  “MYGOD, IVY.” Hank, the photographer Ivy had been filling in for, sat hunched over her laptop, clicking through the photos from the calendar shoot. “These are incredible.”

  “Thanks.” She stood behind him and looked over his shoulder, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “I had good material to work with.”

  “I’ll grant you that.” He paused, his finger hovering over the mouse, a picture of a smiling Cade with Bilbo perched on his shoulder frozen on the screen. “But this is more than good material. This is good photography.”

  “Again, thanks.” Ivy dragged her eyes away from Cade’s seminude image, her face heating with the memories of their sex-capades the night before. And the night before that. And the night before that.

  Did Hank have to stop on that photo?

  Mercifully, he clicked on to the next one before she started dr
ooling.

  “It’s me who should be thanking you for bailing me out.” He clicked again, pausing to take a sip of coffee from a mug that looked like it hadn’t seen the inside of a dishwasher in years. “You know, you don’t need me for this. You could have picked the final proofs yourself. I trust your judgment, and I’m sure the shelter board does, too.”

  “I didn’t want to step on any toes. The calendar is still your project. You started it. I figured you should finish it, now that your back’s feeling better.”

  “It’s getting there.” He sat up straight and stretched to one side and then the other. “But it’s not one hundred percent. Doctor’s got me on restricted activity.”

  “What about your business?” She glanced around Hank’s cluttered studio, noticing for the first time the thin layer of dust on the equipment.

  “See that pile of papers?” He gestured to a stack next to the cordless phone. “All clients I have to call and break the news that I’m out of commission for the time being.”

  Ivy pulled a chair up next to him and sat, her mind spinning with half-formed ideas. “What kinds of clients?”

  “The usual. Weddings, engagement photos, birthdays. A couple of family portraits. And one woman who wants me to take glamour shots of her cats.” A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Florian’s going to shit himself.”

  “Who’s Florian?”

  “Florian Rhodes. The only other professional photographer in town. Total hack, if you ask me. He usually gets my overflow business.” Hank took another sip from his ancient mug and grimaced, whether because of the coffee or the competition, Ivy didn’t know. “What the hell kind of name is Florian, anyway? I bet he made it up. He looks more like a Jake to me. Or maybe a James. I had an assistant named James once. Real pain in the ass. Refused to answer to Jim. He quit before I could fire him.”

  “What if I cover for you for the next few weeks?” Ivy scooted to the edge of her chair. “Like I did with the calendar.”

  “Why would you want to do that?” He scratched at his temple. “I mean, the calendar was for charity. But bar mitzvahs? Pet portraits? You’re used to working with professionals, not local yokels.”

  She shrugged. “It’ll be a nice change. Except for the pet-portrait thing. I’m not touching that.”