His body vibrated against my back.
“Are you laughing at me?”
“I’m laughing at the situation. I’m not only taking your mac and cheese virginity, but also your culinary one.” His voice dropped to a husky low as he said, “I better make this a meal to remember.”
I pressed my back into him. “I have no doubt it will be.”
“If you keep talking and not stirring, that sauce is going to boil over prematurely.” He smacked my butt playfully, then shifted to the side and turned his attention to the pasta.
The heat from the stove dampened my skin, beading sweat across my chest and plastering my cotton top to my back. Dare reached up to turn on the vent above my head, his shirt riding up in the process, exposing his hard abs.
Still keeping one hand on the spoon, I pointed at him. “Hang on. I want to see it.”
One eyebrow lifted and his face broke out into a wicked grin. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
“Not that,” I said, laughing. “Your phoenix tattoo. I’ve been fascinated with the design since I first saw it. I want to know the story behind it.” Then I glanced down at his pants. “Though we can play that game, too. Later.” I reached over and pulled his shirt up. “Let me see.”
His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You really need my shirt off for this?”
“I’d really like to admire the artwork.” And his entire freaking body.
“I forgot. You live for art.” He smirked and pulled the shirt over his head, turning his back to me. “Like what you see?”
Hell yes. I ran my eyes up the taut muscles to his shoulder, and stared. The bird took my breath away. “It’s remarkable. How does it look so...alive?”
“That was the point,” Dare said. “I got it as a symbol of reincarnation. Starting over. Creating new life from the ashes of the old.”
I reached out to touch it, my fingers grazing a scar. I hadn’t even noticed it before.
“What’s this from?”
He shrugged. “Dad fights dirty.”
My eyes widened and I stared at him, not sure what to say. “Oh, Dare…”
“It’s over,” he said. “I don’t dwell on the past.”
He shuddered slightly as I traced the outline of the bird with my fingers. “It’s beautiful.”
“Rex did it.”
“Rex?”
“Vogel. He drew it for me,” he said like it was no big deal. I gaped at him. “Rex Vogel? You know Rex Vogel? Well enough for him to draw you a tattoo?”
He nodded. “I worked for him—well, under him for a while. He taught me everything I know.”
“Vogel doesn’t take apprentices.” That was a well-known fact in the industry.
“He made an exception for me,” Dare said. “His studio was next door to our old place in Queens. I hung out there every day when I was a kid. We drifted apart when I became mixed up with my father’s work. Once I got out of juvie, I begged him to take me back. He saved my life.”
“Amazing.” I shook my head. “I can’t believe I didn’t realize the paintings were yours.” I guess I simply couldn’t fathom that someone so young and—let’s face it—dangerously good-looking could also be so incredibly talented. It wasn’t fair.
Dare laughed. “I’m just a piece of meat to you, aren’t I?” he said as if reading my mind.
“A talented piece of meat,” I said. “You’re fascinating.” My smile dropped and my stomach knotted. I wish I could say the same for myself. But the truth was, I really was just a piece of meat to Dare. And for the first time in my life I wished I could be more. The beautiful women in his paintings had probably been more.
“Did you love them?” I asked.
He turned to face me. “Who?”
I could feel heat creep into my cheeks. “The girls in the paintings,” I said, focusing again on the cheese sauce. “My friend Sabine said you can clearly see they’re in love with the artist. So I’m just wondering if…” Stop. Now. Just stop. What was I doing?
Dare surprised me by laughing. “It’s just work, Ree.”
“I know.” I mumbled. “But it’s a specific type of work. An incredibly intimate, erotic kind of work. And they’re all so gorgeous.” And Dare was…well, Dare.
“If I had to love every woman I painted I’d be an emotionally and physically exhausted guy,” he said, still smiling.
“What about the girl with the long, black hair?” I stopped stirring and looked up at him. There had to be a story behind that one.
“Sia?” His lips tightened. “She was another one of Vogel’s exceptions. A sculptor. She was my first subject.” His eyes lost some of their focus. “She moved to Amsterdam about a year ago.”
Was she your exception, too? I wanted to ask, but decided the question was best left unanswered. We all had our pasts. God knows mine was much, much darker than anything Dare could imagine.
“It’s just work,” he said again. “You’re not jealous of the girls on the canvases, are you? Because the only girl I care about right now is the one…letting the sauce boil over.” He grabbed the spoon I’d accidently abandoned and turned down the heat on the stove.
“See? I told you I would be a bad cook.” I slipped away from the stove and turned to the counter to hunt down my usual cocktail of pills from my purse.
Dare was starting to get into my head. HARD. And I couldn’t let that happen.
“What are you doing?” His eyes were on the bottle in my hands.
“Just need to take the edge off.” It was too much. All of it. “Do you want some?”
The muscles in his jaw tightened as he shook his head. “You really need that shit to feel good right now?”
I didn’t. Which was not only incomprehensible, but so scary I was suddenly trembling. Usually I took the pills to feel better. Right now, I wanted to NOT feel.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m…” Afraid. Confused. Fucked up. With the pills, I didn’t have to deal with these emotions.
In a heartbeat, Dare was in front of me, pinning my back against the counter, his mouth crushing mine so hard I wasn’t able to breathe or think. When he broke the kiss, I was dizzy and breathless.
“Just for tonight, let me be enough, Ree.” He grabbed the hem of my shirt and pulled it over my head. His fingers wove through my hair as he kissed his way down my chin and throat to my chest. “Say I’m enough.”
I nodded. He was enough.
And that scared the shit out of me.
My head was spinning from the feel of his lips, but we were supposed to be cooking. “What about the mac and cheese?”
“Oh, we’re going to finish it,” he said, spinning me around so I was facing the stove. “In fact, you’re going to finish it. No excuses.”
Then he unbuttoned my shorts and slowly slid his hand down the front, his other locking around my wrist to guide my fingers back to the wooden spoon. “Now…you’re going to be a good girl and keep stirring while I…”
OH. MY. GOD.
sixteen
The light of early morning sunshine woke me. Or maybe it was the heat of Dare’s gaze. I felt it on me before I even opened my eyes. It was a weird sensation—both familiar and unnerving. Slowly lifting my eyelids, I found him sitting on an armchair off to the side of the bed, watching me sleep.
No, not watching. Drawing.
Eyebrows knitted together and lips pursed in deep concentration, his gaze flitted from me to the sketchpad propped on his bent knee. His hand moved across the surface and the only sound in the apartment was that of pencil on paper. Up and down and side to side, with long, sweeping strokes.
It sounded beautiful. And almost made me forget where I was.
In bed.
Naked.
After a night of mac and cheese and Dare.
My body was sprawled across the bed, the sheets partially kicked off, exposing one leg, full chest, stomach, and part of my hip bone. One arm was under my head, the other rested in front of my breasts.
My very
, very naked breasts.
I grabbed for the covers.
“Don’t move.” Dare’s voice broke through the silence. “Leave it. You’re too beautiful to hide,” he said, turning his sketchpad so I could see his drawing.
“Is that really how you see me?” I looked like a sleeping goddess. The one thing that stood out the most was the tiny, content smile on my face. Was I really that peaceful in my sleep?
“It’s how you are, Ree,” he said before he turned back to his work. “Now, stay and let me finish you off.”
He smirked. Bastard. That wasn’t a Freudian slip. It was an intentional tease.
And it worked, damn it. It worked too well.
Tingles spread through my body, intensifying everywhere his deep, dark gaze fell. Right now, Dare owned every part of me. With a single freaking look, he made my body come alive with want. Pulsing. Aching. From head to toe and all the secret places on the way down.
I was suddenly hyperaware of everything. The way the sheets felt against my naked skin, the tightening of my nipples, the throb between my legs that begged to be satisfied. When his gaze caressed the peaks and valleys of my breasts, I had to bite back a moan. My nipples beaded into almost-painful peaks and I heard him groan.
He saw. He knew the effect this was having on me.
When I met his eyes, they were hot, dark pools of desire and I tried to do everything I possibly could to keep from writhing under the sheets. But I couldn’t hold still any longer as I watched him lick his lips.
My eyes locked on his as the fingers of my right hand defiantly reached out to touch my breast.
A flash of pure want lit up Dare’s face. “I told you not to move.” His voice was a low, pleased growl as he shifted in his seat.
“You did, didn’t you?” With a rebellious lift of my eyebrow, I trailed my hand over my nipple and down my stomach, getting closer and closer to the edge of the sheet.
Dare’s jaw tightened.
No, his entire body tightened.
“Fuck.” The pencil came to a halt on the page when I slipped my fingers under the covers, reaching down to touch the wetness that had pooled between my thighs.
His eyes hooded as he leaned over to slide the sheet off my body. “I want to watch.”
Oh, god.
I parted my legs, exposing myself to him as I slipped a finger between my folds. He groaned my name and when I moaned his in return, I heard the pencil between his fingers snap.
“Dare,” I said, panting, “is this ruining your picture?”
“Hell no.” He shifted in his seat again, the bulge in his sweats straining the material.
“Do you like what you see?” I breathed.
Sliding one hand into the waistband of his pants, he showed me just how much. “Spread your knees wider.” He slowly began to stroke himself. “Pinch your nipple.”
Never breaking eye contact, I let him guide me, rubbing faster and venturing deeper, my hips bucking in rhythm with my thrusts. When I cried out his name, I didn’t care if the entire building heard me.
He shut his eyes and growled, practically launching on top of me. “Fuck watching. I want to participate. I’m much more of a hands-on kind of guy.” He lowered his head between my legs. “Or, mouth-on in this case.” I could feel him grin.
And then his tongue darted out to lick my swollen clit and I lost all control.
seventeen
By the beginning of October, Dare was a permanent fixture in my daily life. The more time I spent with him, the easier it was to breathe. I no longer had to force laughter or smiles—they were real. I didn’t even have to fake happiness. The more liberated I felt, the more I thought about pursuing my own wants and lifting a middle finger to duties and my parents’ plans.
School had taken a backburner to art. For the fifth time in three weeks, I was ditching a mandatory seminar for a show. This time at La Période Bleue. We’d booked a young artist from New Jersey that I’d discovered on a street corner.
“That was the last of the paintings!” Sabine came up to me and squeezed my shoulder. “All of Jessa Tyrell’s pieces have officially been sold. Thanks to you, chérie!”
“Congratulations.” Dare leaned over and kissed my temple. Even after four weeks, his lips still awoke the butterflies in my stomach. But I no longer minded the little fuckers. I’d gotten used to them. So much so I hoped they were there to stay.
“Any luck convincing this one to show with us?” Sabine nodded to Dare.
“I’m still working on it,” I said.
She squeezed my shoulder. “Work harder. We have that new artist showcase in November that a Wilde would be perfect for, no?”
When Sabine disappeared to speak with Jessa, I turned to Dare. “What do you say about putting a couple of your pieces in?”
“You really think I’m good enough for mainstream?”
“I think you’re amazing,” I said. “Maybe you can even put that new one in that you’ve been working on.”
“I don’t know if I can finish it by November. Work’s really busy right now.” His mom had lost her job a few weeks ago, so Dare had been taking double shifts. “Yeah, the irony that I paint other people’s dream houses instead of working on my dream hasn’t escaped me.”
Dare’s situation couldn’t have been more different from mine. The money he earned from his job never seemed to be enough, and he worried almost constantly about his family. The only time he was completely at peace was when he worked on the new painting.
Real Ree, he called it.
A Wilde original.
“Will you at least consider the show?” I asked, pressing myself closer to breathe him in. I could not get enough of him. “The world needs your art. Come on, I dare you.”
He winked and gave me one of his darkly delicious grins. “You just want to be the one who discovered it, right?”
I nodded. “Partly. It’s such a high, Dare. Discovering Jessa was such a rush. I really wish this could be my life. My permanent, happy life.”
“Why can’t it?” The question wasn’t a new one. “This is where you belong.”
“I know, but…” I closed my eyes, shutting out the colorful walls.
“But your parents. But your duty as a McKinley.” He’d heard the speech too many times. “And what else was there?” His voice turned sharp. “Oh, right, all those rich pricks you have to go on pretend dates with to keep Daddy from freezing your credit cards.”
“Dare…”
“Why not live your own life? Why don’t you just tell them about me? If you let me into it, maybe I can help.”
They’d never let him in. I knew this from experience. My father would destroy Dare if he got even one whiff us dating.
I just shook my head because I had no good answers to his questions.
Dare turned away from me, his jaw set, the hurt in his eyes killing me.
Later that night, we lay in Dare’s bed on top of the comforter, fully clothed, him doodling in his sketchbook with one hand, while his other was draped over my shoulder. The air between us pulsed with tension. Even though he absentmindedly ran his fingers over my skin, I didn’t feel the warmth in his touch.
He was quiet. Eerily so. His body was here, but his mind was so far away it made me miss him. I knew he was pissed, but I didn’t know how to broach it, what to say, how to bridge the gap.
The silence stretched between us until I couldn’t stand another minute of it.
I spoke quietly. “You don’t understand what my family is like.”
“I understand that they’re killing you with their demands, but you refuse to do anything about it. That is painfully obvious.” His eyes hardened. “You’re much happier as Ree—the smiling girl who wears jeans and vintage t-shirts, and organizes gallery shows all by herself. Reagan McKinley is the unhappy, poor little rich girl who gets high and fucks bad boys in clubs just so she can feel alive.”
“Wow…” His words sliced through me.
“I just don’t get
why you can’t break free. Live your own fucking life.”
“It’s not that simple,” I said, heat rising to my cheeks. There was so much about my life that he didn’t get, couldn’t get. It wasn’t so black and white.
“It could be.”
“They won’t let me, Dare. You don’t know what they’re like.”
“How could I? You’ve never introduced me to them. Because you’re ashamed of me.” Raw anger shaped his features as he said, “I’m your dirty little secret.”
“You know what? If that’s what you really think of me, then you can go fuck yourself. You’re sitting here telling me how well you know me, judging me, and yet you have the nerve to think I’m ashamed of YOU? REALLY?” I was shouting so loud he actually had the good sense to look shocked. “I’m ashamed of THEM, Dare. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me. You are the only person I’ve ever wanted to be with for more than one night—and every moment I am with you only makes me want you more. You are not my dirty little secret. You’re everything I want in my life. If I believed for even a nanosecond that they would welcome you into their fucked-up world, that they would even tolerate you there, I would be dragging your fantastic ass to every stupid family event I have to go to. But they won’t. They would do everything in their power to break us apart, to destroy you. THAT is why you’ve never met them. THAT is why I don’t tell them about you. I’m not keeping YOU from them—I’m keeping THEM from you.” I sighed. “From us.”
He sat there in stunned silence for a moment. “So choose us,” he finally said. “Why keep playing their games?”
I shook my head. “It’s…not easy or simple. But I want to. And I’m working on it, okay? Can that be enough for now?”
He stared at me, then slowly nodded. “But only because you said I have a fantastic ass.” His lips quirked upward, though tension still defined his jaw.
“I’m being serious, Dare.” I punched him in the ribs, earning a full-fledged smile.
“I know,” he said. “I know. And I’m sorry.” He pulled me against him and pressed his lips to my hair. Then he whispered, “Okay, I’ll do it.”
Untamed (Untamed #1) Page 9
