“Do what?”
“The show,” he said. Really quietly. Very carefully. “I’ll do the damn show.”
I couldn’t speak, couldn’t move for what felt like a full minute as I stared at him, stunned. Then I tackled him.
“Really?! You’ll do it?” I was straddling him as I kissed my way across his lips, down his jaw, over his cheeks. Then I stopped and pulled back so I could look into his eyes. “You’re not doing it just for me, are you? Because we fought?”
He shook his head. “I’m doing it because of you. But I’m doing it for myself.”
“Thank you! I’m seriously dying of happiness right now! Also, kinda hurting from this sharp pencil sticking in my butt.” I pulled his sketchpad and pencil from under me, feeling slightly guilty that I’d scrunched up the latest page of Dare’s work.
I was about to place both on the nightstand, when my eyes landed on his drawing. My breath caught.
“Oh, wow!” It was a phoenix. Kind of like the one he had on his shoulder, but different in every way Dare’s work diverged from Vogel’s. Dare’s bird looked feminine and pretty. Almost like it was drawn to complement his, while at the same time being completely unique on its own.
“This would make a beautiful tattoo,” I whispered.
Dare followed my gaze. “You think so?”
“It’s magnificent.” I met his eyes. “Will you paint it on me?” I pulled off my shirt and unzipped my shorts, shimmying them down my hips. Once I was only in my bra and panties, I stretched across the bed on my side, facing him.
Dare caressed my bare hip, slowly sliding his fingers up to right below where my ribs began. “Here.” It wasn’t a question. And it didn’t need to be. Dare knew my body better than I did. And he was right. That was the perfect spot.
It didn’t take long for him to set up. I loved watching him work—all pure passion and deep concentration. It was like he was transported into another dimension where only he, the canvas, and the paint existed. And tonight that canvas was me.
It was amazing to be a part of something he loved with all his heart. I could feel it in every stroke of his brush, every touch of his finger. I could feel Dare’s love for the art all the way down to my bones.
Oh, god.
The things he was doing to my body and heart shook me to my core. It wasn’t so much a sexual experience this time, as it was a deeply intimate one that made me feel things I never knew I could. And it filled me with the most amazing sense of calm.
I closed my eyes, soaking it in. Soaking him in.
“Ree?” he said. “Are you okay?”
I realized I’d never been more okay than I was in that moment.
“Yeah,” I said with a smile. A REAL smile.
He stood up and brought over a mirror. When he held it over me, I could see both his shoulder and my hip.
His phoenix and mine.
I reached toward the image.
“They’re like the two parts that come together to make a whole story,” I said. “Two parts. One whole.”
Two very different pasts. One present.
Like us.
My voice cracked. “I—” I stopped before something slipped out that I wouldn’t be able to take back. But if I was capable of love, I would love this bird. With my whole heart. “Thank you,” I said quietly. “It’s perfect.”
“Perfectly flawed.” He grinned and pointed to a place where the paint had run a bit.
“Just like me,” I said, reaching for him and pulling him down on top of me.
My lips sought out his hungrily. His tongue slipped into my mouth, tasting me so slow and deep it made my toes curl and fireworks go off behind my lids.
Something had happened while he was drawing on me that completely changed the intensity between us. Our kisses were always wild and untamed, but now there was something more to them. Something I was afraid to put a word to. So I bowed my back, raising up off the bed, trying to crush my mind, body, and soul into his until we were melded into one.
Two parts. One whole.
His hands drifted down to grip my hips and steady me. He groaned when his fingers grazed my faux tattoo. “Shit, it’s going to smudge. We should let this dry.”
“You really want to wait?” I slid my hand between us, and delved under the waistband of his jeans so I could wrap my fingers around him. He moaned, throbbing in my grip.
“Fuck it. I guess these sheets are bound to get filthy one way or another.” He rose to his knees and hooked his fingers into my underwear. A moment later my panties hit the floor. My bra followed, then his shirt and jeans.
I reached for a condom from the nightstand, but when I turned back to Dare I realized he had other plans.
“I’m going to make you mine,” he said, kissing his way to my breasts. “I’m going to claim you, body and soul.” His lips trailed down my stomach to the place I needed him most. “Say my name.” The order came as his tongue darted out to lap at my ache. “You are mine.” He licked again, then paused right over my sweet spot. “Say it, Ree.”
I lifted my hips. “Dare, please.”
“You are mine. Say you are mine.”
“I am yours. Only yours.” I needed him. Right now. All of him. Everywhere.
His smile turned wicked and his eyes darkened with lust as he pressed his mouth to my hot, tender core. He tasted me with a single leisurely lick, letting my excitement melt on his tongue before taking my clit gently between his teeth and making me cry out in pleasure.
I forgot how to breathe. How to speak. The only language I had left consisted of a lot of moans and a few grunts. Dare’s mouth was the only thing that existed in my world. The most perfect thing in the entire universe. Every sharp nip was followed by a warm, soothing lick that made my insides tense and tingle as my head spun out of control.
My hands fisted the sheets, clinging on for life as he worked me tighter and tighter into a feverish frenzy. Finally, with one last lick, he tipped me over the edge. My body convulsed as I came, the fierce pulses of pleasure rocking into the depths of my soul as I cried out his name.
Dare kissed his way up my body, leaving a little trail along my skin. I unwrapped the condom and put it on him, but when he entered me this time, there was something different about the way our bodies fit together. He filled me even more, quenching some kind of thirst I wasn’t even aware I had. With each thrust, he plunged deeper into a zone that was teeming with both pain and pleasure. My heart beat faster, harder, louder than it ever had before as I clung to his shoulders and wrapped my legs around his waist, pulling him even closer until we melded completely.
In this moment, he was mine and I was his. All his.
“I’m yours, Ree,” he said right before his body was overtaken with waves of pleasure.
It was hearing those words that pushed me over the edge again. Our bodies shook to a joint rhythm only our hearts could hear as we indulged in a high unlike any other I’d ever experienced.
Hovering directly above me, his smile was dazzling and warm. His eyes met mine and my heart skipped a beat. There was a quiet softness in them I didn’t expect to see.
“Two parts,” he said softly. “One whole.”
And my heart filled with Dare. Bubbled up and overflowed, spilled out of my body, saturating the entire apartment, the building, the city.
Coloring my entire world.
eighteen
“Why won’t you just let me make some space for you in my closet?” Dare said, from behind the canvas where he was putting finishing touches on Real Ree. “You’re sleeping in my bed every night, you’re studying on my couch, you’re eating my mac and cheese, and you’re indulging in very steamy showers in my bathroom. It just makes sense for you to bring over some clothes. No strings attached.”
There was nothing I wanted more than to move my stuff in and never leave. But my fucked-up life had never been about getting what I wanted, and if I was going to extract myself from that world, I needed to do it one step at a time. Slowly. And start wit
h something smaller, like changing my major to art history.
Though step-size was relative, and to my parents, switching out of Political Science was not going to seem small.
At all.
“Ree?” Dare had stopped painting and was looking at me.
I looked up from the open textbook in my lap. “I’ll think about it. Maybe after midterms.”
His eyes darkened. “You mean after the mayoral election, right?”
No. Maybe. Okay, yes. I had high hopes that things would ease up once my parents began campaigning. They’d be too focused on winning voters over to be able to deal with what they were going to see as my betrayal to the family. Too distracted.
I hoped.
I opened my mouth to explain, but Dare beat me to it.
“Forget I brought up the fucking closet,” he said. “We’ve already declared this apartment an election-free zone, so I’m going to keep it that way. For as long as you need, alright?”
I nodded, wondering if forever was an option.
As November and my father’s announcement drew closer, his team started to shadow me under the pretense of being bodyguards. Every single day it was getting harder and harder to slip away to Dare’s unnoticed. So I became the perfect daughter on the outside, going to all my classes, attending play dates with my parents’ friends’ perfect sons and daughters who were way less perfect than their parents actually realized. At the end of the day, I would run into Dare’s arms. He was my salvation.
Never more so than tonight—two nights before my father’s big day. Though I still had hope—stupidly—that I could keep this part of my life all to myself, my parents’ demands would only increase once the campaign truly started. The clock was ticking. In a couple of days, I was going to be forced to choose between making a break for it and trying to have my own life or succumbing to my parents’ wishes and being a team player.
I didn’t want to play for the McKinley team anymore.
The problem was, I still hadn’t figured out exactly how to get off the roster. And, in all honesty, I was terrified of the repercussions that were sure to follow when I tried.
“Want to go check out that exhibit in the Village Friday night?” Dare asked, threading his fingers through mine and lifting my hand to his lips. We lay entwined together, skin to skin—my favorite way to be with him.
I wish. “I can’t.”
He rained kisses along my knuckles. “Seminar?”
I shook my head, stayed silent.
Friday was the charity gala at the Met. My father had scheduled a press conference on the steps of the museum to announce his candidacy right before the big dinner. There was no getting out of that for any reason.
Dare bit down on my collarbone, making me squeal with laughter. When he nibbled his way up my neck to my mouth, I began to ache with need.
I pushed my worries out of my head and tried to focus on him. And the many things I wanted to do to him right now. Trapping his bottom lip between my teeth, I slipped my hand under the covers to reach for him.
He grabbed my wrists, stopping me. “I really need to get back to work,” he said against my mouth. “You promised me we’d get to finish Real Ree tonight, remember? The gallery show is in two weeks and I need your smile to shine just right. Exactly like this.” He traced my lips with the pad of his thumb. His touch made my heart swell.
I kissed his finger. First lightly, then taking the tip in my mouth and running my tongue down its length. My mouth closed over it and I sucked him into my mouth. I shut off my mind and let my body take over.
Dare’s eyes rolled in the back of his head as he groaned. “Fuck,” he said through gritted teeth. “That’s not fair.”
“Sure you don’t want to work on this Ree first?” I asked as I swirled my tongue over him. “And have this Ree work on you?”
“Not fair at all.” His voice was raspy with want. He pulled his finger from between my lips, fisted my hair, and crashed his lips to mine. One hard kiss led to another, and I thought I had him exactly where I wanted him.
But then he rolled away, pulling the sheet with him. “Work,” he said. “But you’re so going to pay for this when I’m done.”
“Oh, I better.” I grinned really wide and chucked a pillow at his back.
He turned to face me, a sexy smile etched into his face. His sultry, dark eyes washed over my naked body as he bent over and grabbed my chin between his fingers. “I like you the best when you’re like this. When you’re wearing nothing but that beautiful, sexy smile.”
“I like me best like this, too,” I said. “With you.”
It was the loud clap of thunder that jolted me awake in the middle of the night. But it was the nightmare I’d been trapped in that left me shaking. The dream didn’t even make any sense. It was like some drug-induced hallucination.
A basement. NO. A wine cellar. Cold and damp. No light. So deep underground I can’t see or breathe. Hands everywhere. So many hands I can’t keep track of them. Ripping and tearing me apart. Blinding pain engulfs my body and I’m screaming and crying, but no one can hear. No one WANTS to hear.
Then lying in bed as my mother presses down on my face with a pillow until I can no longer scream. Or breathe. My lungs hurt. My father can’t stand the noise so he locks me in a bright, white room I can’t escape from. Beeping machines surround me. And hands. All those hands again. The blinding pain is back as I’m ripped apart. AGAIN.
Over and over and over again.
“Ree?” Dare stirred next to me, his voice groggy with sleep. “You okay?”
My back was pressed flat against the headboard, my knees drawn up to my chest. I tried to inhale, but no air entered my lungs. My head spun. I was cold. So, so cold.
“Can’t…breathe.” My words were barely audible gasps.
Dare’s eyes snapped open and he sat straight up. He reached out to wrap his arms around me. “You’re having another panic attack?”
I smacked his hands away and scrambled out of bed.
McKinleys don’t have panic attacks, Reagan. My mother’s voice. And if they do, they take care of them quickly and quietly.
It was the third one this week. And by far the worst.
Wheezing, I teetered toward the couch in search of my purse. I needed something to calm me down, and only hoped it would be in there. My bottle was back in my apartment, but maybe one or two pills had fallen ou—
“Ree.” Dare’s feet hit the ground. “Look at me.” I could hear him walking over.
I grabbed my purse and started pulling stuff out. There was too much in here. Why was I carrying around so much crap? And why the fuck didn’t I have what I needed when I fucking needed it?
I turned the bag upside-down and started shaking it. Just one. I only needed one fucking pill.
“Look at me, Ree!”
Strong hands grasped my shoulders and everything slowed down, came into painfully sharp focus.
“REE!”
Slowly, I turned. Even through the darkness, I could see the pain in his eyes. With a quick shake of his head, he said, “Don’t.” It was half-warning, half-plea. “You don’t need it.”
No, he was wrong—I did need it. My heart was hammering. One quick swallow and I’d feel better.
“Everything you need is right here.” He opened his arms. “Come here.”
I bit down on my lip, still shaking, still panting. The pills were calling me.
“Let me be the one who makes it all okay. Let me be enough,” he said. “I’ll chase all of your demons away. I promise.”
A promise. One that I wanted to believe in with all my heart.
Without a single word, I wrapped my arms around his neck, letting him lift me into his strong embrace and carry me back to bed. He placed a soft kiss on my forehead as he lowered me onto the mattress, and the air returned to my lungs with a whoosh.
He left for a moment, then was back, sitting on the bed next to me. He lifted my shirt and smoothed his hands over my skin. Then I f
elt the brush.
I turned to look at him, paintbrush in his hand, then down at my side where he’d started to paint.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
“I thought this might help.” He held up the drawing of the phoenix.
My phoenix.
Calm seeped into my skin with every stroke of his brush, every drop of paint. It spread slowly through my body, filling me up with a lightness I’d only ever known with Dare.
Did his phoenix make him feel like this? Like he was strong enough? Like anything was possible?
This paint would wash off tomorrow, but I hoped this feeling would last. Maybe one day the phoenix could have a permanent place on my skin, in my life.
nineteen
“Where the hell were you last night?” My father was waiting inside my apartment when I went to pick up my school stuff the next morning.
In. My. Apartment.
The last time he’d been here was NEVER.
“Out,” I said, moving past him to retrieve my backpack. My heart thundered in my chest, panic rising in my throat. “I was out.”
“I was here all night.” His voice was dangerously low. “I waited up for you. You weren’t answering your phone.”
“I didn’t know I was on call last night.” Probably not the best thing to say, but I was very close to full-on panic. Him being here couldn’t be good.
“You were supposed to be at home, Reagan. In the apartment I pay for.”
“What do you need?”
He stared at me for a silent beat, then said, “You are going to break it off.”
“What?” I shook my head, unsure if I’d heard him correctly with all the blood pounding in my ears.
He couldn’t have found out. No way.
“You heard me. I was not going to do this until after the event, but it had to be addressed. You will break up with him.”
I took a step back, still shaking my head. “You don’t even know him. He’s an amazing artist and an incredible person.”
“I know more about him than you do.” A deadly silence trailed his words.
Fuck. His investigators.
Untamed (Untamed #1) Page 10
