Love Me If You Dare

by Lauren Hawkeye

  I wasn’t a virgin. He wasn’t either, unless all those girls in his wild youth had just been going to his place for slumber parties. But though I’d gone wild once I was at school, I knew, somehow, that this connection between us had to be treated with utmost care.

  “Mmm.” I threw back my head and absorbed the sensation as Dylan played those fingers over my nipple. He pulled, and I felt a series of shocks sparking all the way down to my womb.

  I gasped when he slid his hands under my rear and lifted me. I twined my legs around his waist, arching my back to press my flesh further into his palm.

  He kissed my cheek, then my neck. His teeth sank lightly into the corded muscle of my neck, then the tender spot where my neck met my shoulder.

  “Is this okay?” he murmured against my skin. I knew what he was asking as his lips moved lower, sliding over the upper swell of my breast.

  Slow down, my brain screamed at me. My body ignored the plea, instead leaning back and offering my breast for the touch of his mouth.

  “Did ya remember the bait, Mike?” The voice was male and very, very loud, but it still took a moment for it to sink into my consciousness.

  “Oh, shit.” I flailed as I tried to extricate myself from Dylan’s embrace, succeeding only in making water splash into both of our voices.

  “Not quite the exhibitionist you want me to think you are, huh?” Dylan asked dryly, finally letting me go to dunk back under the water and grin wryly.

  I rose up as much as I could without my breasts escaping the water, searching for the offending party.

  There, half a mile down the small lake—two men in plaid shirts and rubber boots were trudging along the sand with fishing poles and tackle boxes in hand.

  I glared at Dylan, who smiled back with infuriating calmness.

  “Stop grinning! It’s not funny!” I splashed water at him, and he managed to duck the arc of water. I scowled, and he grinned, and the absurdity of the situation hit me.

  A small laugh escaped my lips. I clapped my hand over my mouth, but the sound escaped.

  Dylan started to chuckle, too, and soon we were laughing out loud, not caring that the two men were now looking right at us.

  “This is quite the situation you’ve gotten us into, Kaylee Ann.” Dylan smirked at me. “What’s your plan?”

  I raised my eyebrows and poked him in the chest.

  “My plan is that you will be the gentleman and get out of the water to get me my clothes. You will then shield me while I get dressed.” My voice was prim, but I was still entertained.

  It felt good, to be doing something silly and not serious with Dylan. Something that he hadn’t expected me to do, but that he seemed to have accepted regardless.

  He cocked one eyebrow. “I’m just as naked as you are. Maybe you should get out first and protect my modesty.”

  “Remember those boobs you were just groping? Those make me way more naked than you.” I feigned a scowl.

  “Thank heavens for that.” Dropping a kiss onto the top of my head, Dylan strode forward, out of the water and onto the sand. The water sluicing down his solid frame was a thing of beauty, and I shook my head at the fact that this beautiful, amazing creature had just been touching me.

  He hadn’t gone more than a couple of steps when he turned and cocked his head, studying me.

  “What?” I asked. It was absurd to feel self conscious after what we’d just been doing, and I knew it, but the way he was looking at me peeled away all of the layers that I liked to hide behind.

  “We’ve both changed,” He said, dipping his head in acknowledgement. “Once, you wouldn’t have been caught dead skinny dipping, or even rock climbing”

  “And once you would have been the one to take your clothes off first.” My voice was wry, but I was pleased that maybe, maybe he was finally starting to see.

  Though I might have started out that way, I was no longer acting the way I did just to keep Ella alive. This was me, take it or leave it. And I was convinced that, while some wild streak probably lingered somewhere in Dylan, he really had pulled his act together.

  Nodding, point made, Dylan turned back to continue on his way to the shore.

  “Never say I don’t know how to treat a lady,” he called back over his shoulder as he crossed the sand, seemingly unembarrassed to be naked but for a pair of plaid boxers that were dripping wet and clinging to his skin.

  My mouth parted with surprise as I remembered how... excited... he’d been only moments earlier. I wondered how he was hiding that.

  And then I had to laugh. The fishermen had stopped in their tracks and were watching Dylan and I with mouths agape. With a levity that I hadn’t seen in him before, Dylan saluted the men.

  With a grin he scooped up his track pants and pulled them up over his hips.

  “Nice morning for a swim.”

  I couldn’t help it. I laughed again, a deep sound that came right from my belly.

  I felt lighter than I had in a long, long time.

  Chapter Seven

  A week after Dylan and I had been caught skinning dipping at Fish Lake, I was feeling at loose ends. Serena and Maddy had eked out as much time as they could, but had to get back home—Maddy waitressed year round to give herself spending money, and had scored full time hours for the summer. Serena was on scholarship, and was spending the summer working as an assistant to one of her professors, running experiments on the students who had chosen to take intro psych in a condensed version. Plus she had Alex.

  In other words, they both had a purpose for the next few months. Unlike me, who was still drifting,¸ unable to even land an interview in Fish Lake or any of the neighboring towns.

  I tried to shrug the sense of failure off as I pushed a spindly shopping cart into the small grocery store that sat at the end of Main Street. Just like you’d expect, one of the wheels had a mind of its own, and because of that I wound up shoving the cart through the automatic doors of the entrance rather more forcefully than I’d intended.

  “Piece of shit,” I muttered to myself as I jolted into the produce section. I reached for a bunch of bananas, taking grim satisfaction in the way the smooth, Easter egg purple polish I’d applied the night before clashed with the mottled yellow of the peels.

  I was wondering if I’d made a mistake in coming back home. I hadn’t had any more luck finding a job here than I had back in Connecticut—with the way the economy still was, people were holding on to any job they could with teeth and nails. And I’d hurt Joel a hell of a lot in the process.

  I winced at the thought. I hadn’t talked to him since our halting conversation the night I’d gotten here. In fact, I’d been so wrapped up in Dylan, in my mom and my memories of Ella that I hadn’t even thought about him.

  I picked up a plastic carton of sliced watermelon, trying to add up my grocery budget in my head. I was running low on funds, and I wasn’t about to ask my mom for money, not even if it was for the groceries that disappeared when I put them in the cupboards, though I never actually saw her eat.

  As I shopped, it felt like I’d gone back in time, back to when I was the glue that held our household together. This made me think of Dylan, of our last encounter.

  Of how I hadn’t heard from him for a week. I knew he was away working, but still... I’d thought he might text, or something.

  I had nothing to base that hope on. If I had no idea what was going on between us, then I didn’t imagine he did, either.

  “Kaylee?”

  It took me a moment to locate the blonde head amongst the bright bunches of bananas.

  “Hey, Caroline.” I was happy to see her, but my smile was a bit forced. I hadn’t talked to her since the night of the party, and I knew she’d want to know what had happened with Dylan.

  “Oh my God, I was just about to text you.” She wheeled her cart towards mine, and I noticed grumpily that hers didn’t have a bum wheel.

  “Oh?” I braced myself for the onslaught of questions. Being Caroline, she wouldn’
t be offended if—when—I brushed them off.

  But I would feel like a bitch.

  “Are you still looking for a job?”

  I blinked, startled. This wasn’t the question I’d expected her to ask.

  “I am, actually.” Unbidden, excitement sparked to life. Not only did I need the money, but I was feeling lost without some sense of purpose.

  Being back home was affecting me more than I’d thought it would. I hadn’t lost all sense of myself, but back here it was easier to remember the girl I once was.

  Caroline hadn’t stopped talking; I forced myself to tune back in.

  “...so Nate was talking to his uncle, the one that lives in Frenchglen. His uncle told him he had a job opening, and did I need something for the summer?”

  Okay, I was officially excited. I just needed Caroline to finish her story.

  “But I’m working down at the lake for the summer. So I said I knew someone who would be awesome.” She beamed at me, finally done. “Only if you’re interested, of course.”

  “Oh, I’m interested.” I pulled my cell phone out of the pocket of my cutoffs and opened it to enter a new contact. “Who do I have to call for an interview?”

  Caroline laughed, the same sweet, tinkling laugh she’d had back in elementary school.

  “No interview. He needs someone, like, stat. We told him how responsible you are, what a hard worker. He wants to meet you but said that if you’re anything like what we said you were, the job is yours.

  I stared at her, lips parted in surprise, even as guilt wormed its way into my gut.

  Responsible. A hard worker.

  I wasn’t sure that either of those things described me anymore.

  But I needed that job, if not for the money, then for my own sanity. I couldn’t spend the next three and a half months wandering aimlessly around Fish Lake, picking my drunken mother up from the martini bar and mooning over a guy who hadn’t bothered to contact me in a week.

  “Thank you Caroline. Seriously.” I punched the phone number that she recited into my contacts list, relief and excitement warring for precedence.

  I had a job. Halle-freaking-lujah.

  I leaned in for a hug as we promised to get together for coffee the next week. As I pulled back, she dropped the question I’d been expecting.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask... was it all okay after the party? With Dylan, I mean?” Though my initial response was irritation, Caroline’s face showed nothing but concern.

  I didn’t have to worry about her running around town spreading rumors, I reminded myself. This was Caroline. The chick who’d just done me one hell of a solid.

  “Oh, it was fine.” I waved my hand in what I hoped was an idle manner, trying to dust off her question. “He was just surprised to see me. He didn’t know I was coming back for the summer.”

  “Didn’t you keep in contact with him after you left?” Caroline’s brow furrowed, and I realized that no matter how many long distance texts we sent to keep in touch, if you weren’t around someone day to day there were so many details that could be missed.

  “No.” The word was forced out of lips that were suddenly numb and cold. “No, he was Ella’s friend, not mine. Remember? You guys used to party together. I wasn’t part of that crowd, except for you.”

  Caroline tilted her head and studied my face. She often came across like a silly party girl, but one of the reasons we’d ever been friends in the first place was because she had a brain hidden under all of that fluffy gold hair.

  “Maybe.” She pursed her lips. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, suddenly wanting to get out of the store. Then she arched an eyebrow at me.

  “A couple of tourists caught ‘some guy with a bird tattoo’ skinny dipping with ‘a hot redheaded chick’ at the lake last week.” Her eyes searched mine, the hint of a smile of her face.

  I choked on my own saliva as I tried to swallow past the sudden knot in my throat.

  “Oh?” I had thought that I would be mortified, but instead I found myself wanting to laugh. “Hmm.”

  “You harlot,” Caroline finally said after watching me for a full minute. I feigned innocence, blinking at her with deliberately wide eyes.

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Turning, I examined a stack of pineapple far more closely than they needed to be.

  “He always did pay a lot of attention to you.” Caroline grinned when, startled, I dropped the pineapple I was holding back onto the pile and whirled to face her, incredulous.

  She winked at me and sashayed out of the produce section, with one final little wave over her shoulder.

  Damn it. That beyotch always did need to get the last word.

  ***

  Hours later, I had a heavy tote bag of paper over my shoulder, my pink laptop in my arms, and a buoyed sense of self as I walked into town.

  I’d called Nate’s uncle as soon as I’d gotten home and put the groceries away. He’d asked if I could come right out and sign the paperwork—and then he’d given me my first load of work.

  Data entry. It was boring as hell, but it paid better than anything I’d hoped for. And the best part was that I only had to actually go into the office, twenty miles away in Frenchglen, once a week to collect the next batch of data. As long as I got it all done on a weekly basis, it didn’t matter when or where I worked.

  Right now I was craving some caffeine and some apple pie. I planned to set up my laptop in one of the back booths at Twin Peaks and get started on my new job.

  Automovation was quieter than usual as I passed, the shrieking from the other day missing.

  “Don’t do it, Sawyer.” I told myself to keep on walking, though every fiber of my body wanted to stop in and oh-so-casually see if Dylan was there, hanging out with Jax.

  “And what if he is? What if he’s back and hasn’t gotten in touch with you?” I lectured myself even as my steps slowed, working with a mind of their own. “You’re going to feel like shit. Just keep going. Go to the diner, get some work done.”

  “You answering yourself too, Sawyer?” A voice called out from inside the shop. I flushed, caught in the act as I turned to find Jax waving me in.

  “No. Not answering myself yet.” Self-conscious, I ran a hand through the curls that I’d allowed to fall free today and followed Jax’s waving hand in.

  “Where are you off to?” Jax nodded at the laptop snuggled in my arms before lowering himself to a long, flat trolley on wheels. Lying down on his back, he used feet clad in work boots to slide himself under the car.

  I winced as he did.

  “Don’t you get claustrophobic under there?” I raised my voice so he could hear me. “And I’m heading to the diner for some coffee. Got some work to do.”

  “I’ve been doing this since I could walk, so no.” There was a thump, followed by a string of curses that tinted the air blue. When Jax wheeled himself out from under the car, he had a streak of grease on his nose, and his hair was standing on end.

  It was rare to see him any other way. Automovation had once been his dad’s, and he’d worked there his entire life.

  “I have coffee,” he repeated, gesturing to the small stretch of counter beside the old fridge. “Set up your computer here. Keep me company.”

  For one quick minute I wondered if he was flirting with me. But then I remembered Jax with Maddy, the way he’d brushed her off so smoothly that her feelings hadn’t been hurt.

  Jax didn’t flirt, at least not in a way that meant anything. I had a newly developed hunch as to why, but I had no business asking him.

  “All right.” I decided after a long minute. Why the hell not? I didn’t have so many friends in Fish Lake that I could afford to push away the ones who weren’t off put by the tragedy of my life.

  “How do you take your coffee?” Jax pulled some kind of wrench looking thing from his tool box and slid it into his pocket at the same time that he pulled a plain green coffee mug from a shelf above the warmer.
/>   “However.” I waved my hand at him as I gingerly cleared a spot on the bench of his work area and opened my computer. He set a mug of coffee that smelled acidic and was thick as tar on my tongue at my elbow before returning to his work on the red sedan, seemingly content with the silence.

  Or maybe not so content. I’d barely opened the program that Nate’s uncle had shown me how to use when Jax cast a curious look at me from over his shoulder.

  “Why do you need to work for the summer? Your parents are better off than most.” The way that he said it told me he didn’t mean any insult, he was just stating a fact.

  And it was true enough. Though my parents had never been rich, by Fish Lake standards they were pretty well to do. My dad still did well, and he shuttled enough money to my mom every month to keep a roof over her head and alcohol in her freezer.

  “I...” I stared down at my hands, frozen on the keyboard. The purple polish that had been so perfect only that morning in the grocery store now had a large chip on one thumb, big enough to be all that I could see.

  “When I was younger I felt entitled. Like, my parents had money, so Ella and I should have whatever we wanted.” It wasn’t a nice thought, but it was the truth. Ella had felt the same way, and her allowance had gone straight up her nose. “I don’t feel that way anymore. They’re paying for my school, and that’s plenty. I’d feel bad just sitting around on my ass all summer.”

  And I can never repay what was lost because of me, the nasty voice in my head added. I deliberately squished the thought and shoved it out of my head.

  “Dylan’s coming back tonight.” Jax tossed this at me before sliding back under the car again, giving me a few minutes to pull myself together.

  “Oh?” I thought I did a pretty good job at sounding nonchalant. The raised eyebrow that Jax cast my way when he was visible again told me he knew better.

  “Yep. Nick’s landing in town again tonight too, with his new girlfriend. Kayla.” He made a face. “Kayla. Kaylee. That’s going to be confusing.”

  “I get dibs.” I said absently, my mind worrying things over.