Double Dare

by Melissa Whittle

  For someone who appeared so unencumbered, she had more armored walls than Fort Knox. What or who resided behind that wall? What hurt or secret did she do her best to protect? He wouldn’t get that out of this woman. Another hour of her like this and Tobias would be ready to bail, but he knew this wasn’t Emmaline. A woman who’d run down the street naked to make a friend happy.

  She glanced over her shoulder with another one of those pleasant smiles that reeked of a Stepford wife. Jesus. He’d have to forgo all finesse to get Emmaline back. He shifted the ice chest in his hand. The motion slowed him down and put her ass in his peripheral vision. Tobias forgot what he planned to do. He lost ability to move when she beat him to the shaded tree and knelt down to straighten the cover.

  He forced his gaze to the view of the city. The cathedral top of the main building at the college could be seen from the hill. The top stored a bell tower that chimed at every hour. Oak trees hid the rest of the campus behind wide branches. From his house Tobias could see the east view of the college. From this one, the west, the college was just as appealing.

  “It’s the perfect spot for a picnic,” she said, but her tone sounded brittle.

  Her shoulders bunched around her ears, and he wondered if she honestly didn’t feel the pressure of holding herself in.

  “I knew a friend who knew a friend who could put screws to a guy to let us come up here.” He’d wanted to impress Emmaline so he’d asked for some favors because this place wasn’t usually open to the public. Probably helped that he’d put on his cop face when he asked.

  Emma placed her hands on her hips and the denim stretched over lush curves. Three buttons were undone on the white tee shirt. The only sign that he’d picked up the authentic Emmaline. He wished like hell she’d say something real, something with depth because he ached for that reckless, bleeding heart that would call him Third Button in a dry tone. A yearning strummed through him to hear her say Tobias Graham.

  He sighed. With the Gothic-styled house at their back, the gardens blooming in the fading daylight, it was a perfect spot. He sat down on the cover as the sun began to make the slow trek west.

  “Tell me about your week.” He took out the sandwiches and drinks as she spoke.

  “Well, I looked forward to our morning trade-offs. That was a plus. I had two more emergency appointments for cakes.” She nodded thanks after taking the sandwich and drink.

  “Neither are a wedding, but that’s fine. The Whitmen affair is going to take up a lot of my time. And Abigail brought over the advertisement plan she put together for me in conjunction with yours. Speaking of which, I need you to come by to taste-test a few of the recipes I wanted to send to your other store. The pastries have to be able to keep for a few days and still taste delicious.”

  She smiled at him so light and carefree, and for the first time the smile was genuine. What the hell he was doing with her? Tobias wasn’t light or carefree. He was in every way her anti-thesis.

  He shook his head in disgust. Still, he didn’t have the sense to leave her alone. Yeah, they could keep going on with this fringe of a connection and not challenge each other. Pleasant and polite interactions…he wanted to stick a fork in his eye at the thought. The only solid selling point of staying on the fringe was that he’d never have to crack open the dark recesses of himself and watch them wash over her.

  On that front, he’d been right to want nothing to do with her. He had no business tainting her world. Yet, he lived without the light for much too long. It had been gone again for two days and already he missed the banter, the fire that lit behind her golden eyes and the bite back when he crossed a boundary.

  He glanced at her taking dainty bites of the sandwich. In the same amount of time, three days before, she’d scarfed down a plate of roast beef while she eyed the rest. The sticking point was he spent those days wanting Emmaline. This wasn’t his Emmaline.

  Maybe Tobias could have let it go if he thought she wasn’t interested in him. The damndest thing, she was more interested in him than before. The extended gazes, the unconscious touching and leaning into him without thought proved it, but her personality was off. He’d asked Emmaline out for a date, not Emma. He would get a date with the former even if he had to piss her off.

  “What do you see, Emmaline, when you look down there?” He motioned to the city.

  She frowned at the question, but took in the landscape below them. “The college looks more like a church. One of those Italian ones that’s been there for ages. The ivy is beautiful, and I have no idea why they want to get rid of it. The way it falls over the sides of the building…well, it won’t be the same once it’s gone.” She pointed down. “I can see your house. Can’t make out my street from here, but I know it’s there. It doesn’t matter though because when I look at all of it, I can see home.”

  “The ivy erodes the brick,” he murmured absently.

  The sandwich turned to sawdust in his mouth. Close, but still not there. She sat with her back ramrod straight. About to get his hands dirty, Tobias put the sandwich down on the napkin and wiped his hands together to get rid of the crumbs from the freshly baked bread.

  “What do you see when you look at me?”

  She turned her gaze on him, a Stepford smile on her face. “A man who is stoic, solid and dead serious. There’s humor there buried under all that. A man who is also consistent and thinks fair is the best he can give.”

  The description surprised him. “I’m not sure if you know who you are.”

  She shifted to face him completely. “I know who I am.” She lifted her hands. “I am who I appear to be.”

  He scoffed. “Ok. I’ll take that back. You know who you are with your friends, but they’re not the world.”

  “Wow.” Irritation loosened her posture. “How high-handed and wrong of you.”

  “So, you’re telling me what I see, a woman loyal to her friends and who loves to bake, is all there is to you?”

  “And if it is?”

  She’d kicked off her shoes, leaving her feet bare. The toe ring on her second toe distracted him, but then he told her the truth. “I’ll be bored by the end of the week.”

  She opened and closed her mouth and finally settled on a sound of disgust. “I’m sorry―No. I’m not. If what you see is boring then that’s on you, not me. Just for the record—there is more to me.”

  “What?”

  Her face flushed with color and the line on her forehead deepened. “There’s nothing wrong with not bringing out your baggage for everyone to see,” she hedged. “People can be without drama or trauma, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “If it were statistically possible to have lived this long without drama or trauma, then there’s nothing wrong with all the above. You just wouldn’t be the woman for me.”

  “Well, there you go,” she bit out. “You’re not the man for me. The perfect man for me wouldn’t call me fluff.”

  “I didn’t call you fluff.” He spread out his hands. “Being surface level and fluff are worlds apart. The former just means shallow.”

  She gasped. “Shallow? Surface level?”

  “To me, yes. There’s a lot to be found on the surface. Fluff is nothing but foam. It melts under any heat and turns into that sticky crap you can never really get rid of.”

  “Flattered.” Her tone belied the word.

  “So,” he would have smiled, but it was inappropriate, “we’re just attracted to each other?”

  “So it seems.”

  “Attraction fades, but you hoped for more than sex,” Tobias said. “Right?”

  “I did before I found out you thought I was fluff.” She practically growled at him.

  “You’re not fluff unless…” He pretended to consider the next question by tilting his head to the side. “What would you do if your store suddenly went belly up?”

  “I’d recoup.” Optimism colored her words. “Open up one of those corner stands. I’d need a fewer array of pastries, limited to cookies
and muffins, but I wouldn’t cut corners on quality.”

  “Why?”

  “I do what I love. Yeah, the way I came to it was unconventional and a little depressing, but if you love something, you love it.”

  He uncapped the water bottle, took a swing and dived back into the conversation. “That’s so black and white for you. There are shades of gray.”

  “And why is that?”

  “You can love something because focusing on it got you through a tough time.” Something he suspected the first time she told him about opening the bakery.

  “Five years is a long time to hold onto something you really don’t love.”

  “True,” he said. “But maybe you’re unaware of it. Or, because you’ve been doing it for five years, might as well keep doing it. Transition is a bitch.”

  She made another sound of disgust. “That’s a lot to be unaware of.”

  He stretched back, resting on his elbows. She turned so they were still facing each other. His mind backtracked to what she said. “What do you mean how you came to be a baker?”

  “I told you already.”

  “You glossed.” He prepared himself for the denial.

  “I did not.”

  Again, he had to fight the smile so he raised a brow instead. “You’re skating closer and closer to fluff, Mallow.”

  She narrowed that golden gaze at him, and the heat of it fed the yearning. “You don’t bring up skeletons when you first meet someone.”

  “Our first meeting I saw you naked, or are you glossing over the way we met? I bet you could.” He infused a jerk-like tone in his voice. “Just edit out all the dark parts in your life.”

  “Are you trying to make me not like you?”

  “Yes,” he said. He caught the surprise before she shut the emotion back down. He wasn’t going to say when Emmaline became aware of how much she liked him, she brought out the Stepford wife. She donned Emma who was sweet, nice and shy. Perfectly acceptable, but not half as interesting as Emmaline.

  He pushed. “Are you going to answer my question?”

  She inspected his face as though trying to see if he was playing some sort of game. A game she didn’t know the rules to. She didn’t. Her brow furrowed deeper, and he knew she was trying to put the day’s events in order to make some sense.

  “What’s the point,” she began with a cautious tone, “of taking me on a date and making sure I wouldn’t like you by the end of it?”

  He hadn’t ended up with the woman he asked, but Tobias met her halfway with the truth in his answer. “You’ll know who I am. Answer the question, Mallow.”

  “My life hasn’t been one long stream of happy, but it hasn’t been the worst life a person could live.”

  “So that means what you suffered through doesn’t matter? It shouldn’t be talked about, but forgotten and you should be grateful it hadn’t been worse?”

  She looked at him like he was ridiculous. “How do you look at it?”

  “I live in the dark stuff until the memory of what happened fades and it becomes less of an insistent memory.”

  “My way is wrong, why?” She threw at him.

  “Ignoring something doesn’t make it go away. It’ll still be there, lurking for a moment where it can climb over the mental block you put up.”

  She put down her sandwich and picked up her phone. “You know that how?”

  “I had to study the human mind,” he said. “It’s a quite interesting organ.” He frowned at her because she made a noncommittal noise but was still focused on her phone. “You getting off an exit?” he asked.

  “As I said, you’re not my type though I find you incredibly…” Her gaze went over his legs, up to his arms and stopped at his face. His blood heated at the depth of want in the brief glance. “Tempting, but you are not boyfriend material,” she said.

  His sex tightened, voice thickened. “We could be lovers.”

  She licked her lips and then shook her head. “No, I’ll just go out with you, because you’re interesting. If I start to stray, I’ll have something to remind me.”

  She handed him her phone. His entry was open. She’d deleted his e-mail and replaced it with hethinksurfluff@douche.com.

  He fought the laugh. “So no exit?”

  “Not yet, but I think we need rules.” She lifted her chin, gaze narrowed. “I’m sure you’re good with those.”

  “Are you implying I’m stuffy? A stick in the mud?” And she’d be partly right, he conceded.

  “There is a worse way to put it.”

  Curious now, he relaxed. “What’s the first rule?”

  She ticked off one finger. “No physical contact.”

  He didn’t have to ask if she were serious. “Unless expressly given permission.”

  She gave him a look that implied never and not in this lifetime. “Fine. Second rule; since it’s like being a friend, just with someone dour and surly, it’s ok to see other people.”

  “Unless there has been physical contact.” He could read her thought from the lift of a brow. “Do you kiss Sasha and Abigail?”

  “Bet you would like to watch,” she said with a wry tone.

  “Ah, there you’re wrong. Not into the girl/girl fantasy. Remember, I don’t like crowds. The non-answer means yes?”

  She hesitated and finally said, “I don’t kiss them.”

  “So it’s fair to say if you wouldn’t do it with Sasha and Abigail then it’s not something you’d do with me?”

  She swallowed. “Yes.”

  “But if you do, we’re no longer friends and as you remember I like to drink beer before a pissing contest.”

  She tried for an indignant expression but failed with a twitch of her mouth. “You’re adding pork to my rules.”

  “I used to enforce legislation and that type of stuff rubs off. More rules? So far these are easy to follow.”

  She sighed and laid back on the cover next to him. He moved to his side, propped his head on his hand and looked down into her face. All angles and light. How could he not want Emmaline?

  “Are you trying to break rule one already?” She sounded hopeful and that wasn’t wishful thinking.

  The wind blew and the leaves rustled, blocking out the sound from the city below. “I’m not touching you,” he said in a sing-song voice.

  “Cute. Third rule, third rule…” She frowned and pursed her lips at the same time, grooving the lines into her forehead.

  “How about no matter the question, we’re honest,” Tobias said.

  “That’s easy,” she said.

  “You’d be amazed at all the little lies we tell every day.”

  “You’re talking white lies that are universally accepted.”

  “When I asked about your week you told me what you did, but not once did you say how you felt. Omission is just as bad as lying, if not worse. I don’t know how many times I came to give someone bad news about their loved one and they didn’t get the chance to say goodbye or to say I love you—” Gabriella’s face reared up and he shook his head to get her back out. “Or even I hate your guts. That last one is always interesting to see.”

  “What kind of sick mind could think that’s interesting?” But there was laughter in her voice when she asked.

  “It’s interesting to find out the why. People, despite some of the horrible acts they commit, are universally good at heart.” He hesitated and decided to re-word the statement. “Maybe not good at heart, but polite and considerate. If that fails, then social mores are bound to get them. So, no matter how much they couldn’t stand the deceased they’d find something nice to say.”

  “That makes me remember my Uncle Lorenzo’s funeral. I was a kid. Every memory I had of him was drunk and mean. Well, when he died everyone only had nice things to say about him.”

  “Funerals are for the living,” he said absently.

  The world blurred and his mind drifted back to the last funeral he’d attended. Gabriella, brought down while on duty, had received a her
o’s burial. The sea of blue and black swashes over brightly polished shields had been a sight to behold. Gabriella would have snorted, slapped a twenty in his hand and encouraged him to cry into a bottle of bourbon because he needed a vice anyway. The familiar ache at the memory didn’t dig as deep as it had. A twinge in comparison to when he first lost her. Time being one reason.

  Tobias looked at Emmaline, the other reason why, and sighed before saying, “When someone dies all the irritating stuff that’s not really important doesn’t matter.”

  “Maybe it’s both.” She took in a deep breath and stretched.

  Her shirt hugged her breasts and he got lost in the sight of her nipples straining against the fabric. A raw, urgent need pooled in his gut. Much like the tug of want, much lower than his heart, he wanted to pull lightly at the tight buds with his teeth. Within seconds he could have leaned forward and curled his tongue around the puckered flesh through the cotton fabric. He could make her forget the stupid rules as she’d be too busy cradling his head against her breasts.

  Unaware of his thoughts, she spoke again, “What wasn’t important after your parents passed away?”

  The message was delayed, because a cool breeze made her shiver. And—he shook his head. “What I wanted, because I wanted it.”

  “You went from self-centered to fair?”

  “I wasn’t self-centered. I was inconsiderate.”

  “We’re arguing word choice. Both ways you’re thinking of yourself first.”

  “Little lies I’ve told myself.” He tested it out and saw that it fit. “I’ll give you that. It is a lie.”

  “Which part?”

  “That there’s a difference,” he said.

  She nodded. “Before I can agree with the third rule, we need to decide if a lie we tell ourselves counts.”

  He tsked. “They’re all lies.”

  “It’s hard to accept the truth when it’s bashing you in the face. You’ve got other concerns like the broken nose.” She pointed to her pert nose. Emmaline placed the hand back on her stomach when she realized what she’d done. “Or looking at the signs of a concussion.”

  There was the more he was looking for, so he relaxed on the blanket and ignored the show with her shirt. “I’ll give you that also.”