by Addison Cole
“Dare,” she said, narrowing her blue eyes in a seductive, wanting gaze.
Oh, man. Dare? What was appropriate for a dare? All Dane could think of were the dares they used to give each other as kids. I dare you to streak across the yard. I dare you to peek into the girl’s locker room shower window. I dare you to steal a beer from Dad’s stash.
“Dare it is,” he said. “Lace, I’m not very good at these games.” She’d turned into some type of seductress, and now that the tables were turned, he was afraid to dare her to do the wrong thing. Should he ask for something sexual? Is that what she’d expect? Or maybe she was just acting sexy but didn’t want him to go that far.
“Go on, but be gentle. I haven’t played this in twenty years,” she said.
“Okay. I dare you to get another bottle of wine from your fridge.” What the heck was that?
Lacy smiled. “I can handle that.”
Good. Now I can choose dare and see where we’re headed. He watched her carry another wine bottle back to the living room. Each sway of her hips pumped more desire through his veins. She sat beside him, her leg touching his thigh.
She filled the glasses and handed him one.
“I thought you wanted to eat dinner,” Dane said.
“I do,” she answered. “Okay, your turn. Truth or dare?”
He locked his eyes on hers and said, “Dare.”
Lacy pointed at him and lowered her chin, looking at him with a seductive leer. “Oh, you naughty boy.” She scooted away from him and set the heel of her foot in the space between his thighs. “Foot rub?” she asked.
Dane could hardly breathe. Who was this little sex kitten that had inhabited sweet Lacy? “Foot rub?” he repeated.
She smiled. “Yup. That’s the dare.”
That tells me nothing. Dane took her petite foot between his hands and began to knead the arch of her foot, pushing his thumbs up the center of her arch, then massaging the sides and tops and moving his hands up her ankle. Lacy leaned her head back on a pillow.
“Oh yeah, that feels good,” she said in a throaty voice.
He moved his hand up, caressing the soft skin of her calf beneath his strong hands.
“Lace?”
“Yeah,” she whispered, her eyes still closed.
“Truth or dare?” he asked. I’m not going to be the one to break the pact. She had to make the first move; otherwise he’d always wonder if he’d pushed himself on her.
“Truth.”
“Why did you ask me here tonight?”
Her smile faded, and she lifted her head. Her dress bloomed open again as she leaned forward and took a long drink of her wine. “I changed my mind. Dare,” she said.
“I’m not sure changing your mind is fair,” he said.
“You can dare me anything you want,” she said with a flutter of her lashes.
Dane clenched his jaw. He had a heck of a list for her. He moved his hands up her calf, past her knee, to the warm skin between her thighs, and caressed her there. She leaned back on her elbows, her body open to him. Her head fell back, and Dane crawled over her. She opened her eyes, and he lowered his face until her exhalations became his oxygen.
“I dare you to tell me what you really want from me,” he challenged.
“Everything,” she whispered. “Everything, Dane. I want everything from you.”
He lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her ravenously. She tasted so sweet and familiar, all his pent-up desires rushed forth, leaving him breathless. He reached over his back with one arm and tugged his shirt over his head. His body was on fire as he lowered his mouth to her chin, nipping at the hard edge of her jaw.
A bold look rose in her eyes, and just as quickly, it turned dark and seductive. “Truth or dare?” she said in a sultry voice.
“Truth?” he asked.
“How long has it been since you were with another woman, exactly?”
He closed his eyes. He knew exactly how long it had been. He’d stopped sleeping with other women three months after meeting her. But he couldn’t tell her that. What kind of man relies on self-gratification to satiate a need that’s driven into him night after night by a woman who’s too far away to touch?
“Lace, please,” he said.
“I could give you a dare,” she said. “But I prefer the truth.”
A defeated sigh escaped before he could stop it and he said, “More than a year.”
“More than a year?” she repeated incredulously. “You can be honest with me, Dane.”
“It’s true. Remember that night you told me about your father? The night you cried?”
She wrinkled her forehead. “Yeah.” Her voice was just above a whisper.
Dane remembered it like it was yesterday. He’d wanted to climb through the computer and hold her until her tears dried and she felt safe. “I knew that night that I couldn’t be with anyone else. Not while my heart was becoming yours.” He looked away. “I’m sorry, Lace. You’re the last person on earth I ever wanted to hurt.” He reached for his shirt.
“Dane…”
His heart ached for the hurt in her eyes and the embarrassment that rose on her cheeks. But mostly, he hurt for himself and the reality that who he had been would never change—even if he’d stopped being that person months ago.
“I’m sorry I killed the mood,” he said softly. “My history is always going to be between us. It’s the one thing I can’t change.” He went to the glass doors and closed and locked them. “You don’t have to stay for the rest of the week, Lace. Nothing I do will ever change the man I was.”
“Wait, please,” she said, stopping him in his tracks. “The other night, when you said you had women all over the world, I thought you had been with them more recently. More than a year, Dane, that’s a really long time.”
“I’m well aware of every day, every second, every hour.” Dane’s heart was shattering. He didn’t need to remember all the nights he’d longed for her touch, or the multitude of midnight hours he’d spent staring at the photos she’d texted him, wondering what it would be like to kiss her.
He needed to go away. Far away. Someplace he wouldn’t see her face in every cloud.
“I’m not judging you, Dane,” she said. “I asked that question expecting an answer of a few months, maybe two or three. I don’t know. That would have made me feel better. I never imagined it had been that long.”
“Now you know.” He couldn’t change the fact that he hadn’t gone to see her in all the months since they’d met, and he couldn’t change the number of months and years he’d slept with other women—all of which made him too upset to think clearly enough to comprehend what she was trying to say.
He looked away, and Lacy wrapped her arms around him from behind, resting her cheek against his back.
“Thank you,” she said.
“For?”
“For liking me enough to be faithful even when I was too far away to know if you weren’t.”
Dane clenched his eyes shut as relief tore through him. His shattered heart began pulling itself back together, piece by fragile piece. He’d completely misunderstood what she’d said, and the realization knocked the air right out of him. He turned and reached for her, as much for stability as for the need to feel their connection.
Everything he’d wanted for so long was right there, coming together, and he couldn’t find the words to tell her how much it meant to him. Instead, he looked into the sea of love in her eyes, and he lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her until his heart reassembled, until the pain of thinking he’d lost her melted away and the desire to love her back to being his took over.
He lifted her into his arms and carried her toward the bedroom.
“You’re staying,” she said with a wide smile.
“Babe, we have a lot of making up to do.”
THE NEXT MORNING Lacy danced around the kitchen, humming as she made coffee, eggs, and toast. She’d gotten up while Dane was still sleeping and picked wildflowers from the garde
n. She arranged them in a vase and set them in the center of the table.
“Breakfast? This was not on the itinerary,” Dane said as he came out of the bedroom in only his boxer briefs and wrapped his arms around Lacy’s waist from behind. He kissed the back of her neck and slid his hands beneath her satin camisole.
“Neither was last night,” Lacy said, turning to kiss his cheek.
He pulled her close. “I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything as much as I wanted us to get back together. I can’t change my pa—”
Lacy covered his lips with her finger. “Shh…I didn’t know how much I had been wondering about your past until the words left my lips last night and, Dane, I couldn’t have asked for a better response. No more talk about your past, okay?”
“You won’t get an argument from me.” He kissed her neck.
“And I won’t ever bring it up again. That’s done, and I’m working on my fear of sharks, but I think my fear was bigger than just sharks.”
“Bigger?” He kissed her shoulder, her breastbone, her neck.
Lacy closed her eyes, her body purring from his touch. “Yes,” she said in one long breath. “Danica said…Oh forget it.” She turned and kissed him. “I swear I feel like a nympho with you.”
“Good.” He narrowed his eyes and lowered his mouth to hers, taking her in a possessive kiss. He swept her off her feet and carried her back into the bedroom. “I haven’t had a chance to spoil you yet.”
“Didn’t you spoil me last night?” she asked as he laid her on the bed.
“Heck no. Last night I devoured you. There’s a difference.”
He stood beside the bed looking more handsome and virile than he ever had. Sunlight spilled into the room through the sheer curtains, casting a streak across her stomach. Dane’s hand disappeared into the streak as he lowered himself to the bed beside her.
“What do you want, Lace?” he whispered.
He looked at her with so much love, she felt it like a presence in the room. “You. I want you.”
He kissed her lightly on the lips. “Let me in, baby. Trust me. Tell me what you like so I can be your perfect man.”
Her pulse quickened at the thought of actually saying what she wanted, but his eager eyes, and the way he was caressing her cheek, opened the door, and she walked right through, telling him what she liked as he stripped off her clothes. And the more he gave, the bolder she became. Heat blazed through her with his every touch, his every passionate kiss. Just when she thought she might lose her mind, he drew back and whispered, “I love making love to you, Lacy Snow.”
She closed her eyes, taking pleasure in the masterful, loving attention he gave her, and wondering how she could have ever walked away from him in the first place.
Chapter Nineteen
IT WAS THREE in the afternoon by the time Lacy and Dane arrived at the Salt Pond Visitor Center in Orleans. Lacy couldn’t remember a time when she’d felt happier. Dane had spent the last twenty-four hours helping her through her fears, taking care of his friend, and showing her just how much he loved her. He’d weaseled his way right back into her heart, and as he reached for her hand with a warm smile, she realized that even if she was never able to overcome her fear of sharks completely, they just might be able to be together after all.
In the center of the lobby was an exhibit featuring the Brave Foundation, complete with a reduced-sized model of a great white shark and several billboards of information and photographs.
“This is all about Brave,” she said.
“Yeah. We want the community to understand what it is that we do,” Dane said.
“Speak of the devil,” said a tall woman from behind the reception desk. She smiled at Dane, revealing deep grooves across her forehead and around her mouth. Her skin had a leathery look, as if she’d spent every free moment in the sun.
“We’ll look at it in just a sec,” Dane said. He turned to the woman behind the counter, who looked to be in her mid-forties, with short, sandy blond hair and green eyes. Beside her stood a tall, lanky young man with short brown hair, wearing a park ranger uniform. His eyes locked on Dane.
“Shelley, how are you?” Dane led Lacy to the desk. “This is my girlfriend, Lacy Snow.” He squeezed Lacy’s hand.
Girlfriend? The term took her by surprise, then settled around her until it felt like a second skin. Girlfriend. “Nice to meet you,” Lacy said.
“Hi, Lacy. Nice to meet you, too. I was just telling Tom all about you, Dane,” Shelley said. “He wanted to meet the shark hunter.”
Dane smiled. “That would be me, but I prefer researcher or tagger. Hunter sounds like I might hurt the sharks.” He extended his hand, and Tom’s eyes grew wide.
Tom pulled his shoulders back and said, “Yes, sorry. Researcher. Got it. It’s so nice to meet you. I was looking over the exhibit and…wow. That’s all I can say. Pretty cool stuff.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty cool. We tagged an eight-footer the other day. Hopefully, we’ll gain valuable data and tag a few more over the next week or so. It’s nice to meet you,” Dane said.
“I won’t hold you up,” Tom said. His eyes moved to Lacy. “Enjoy the exhibit, Lacy.”
“Thank you,” she said.
They crossed the room, and Lacy scanned the large orange, black, and blue sign that read BRAVE FOUNDATION, which hung across the top of the exhibit boards with photographs of Dane and Rob lining them. Dane’s dark eyes smiled in every one, his tanned, muscular arms glistening in the sun. In most of the photographs, he was on a boat, leaning over the side, holding the fin of a shark or crouching over a shark that was lying in the center of the boat. She could almost feel the wind blowing his hair askew.
“This is from nine years ago,” she said, pointing to the information posted below the picture of a younger Dane wearing a bathing suit and tank top at the helm of a boat.
“That was a great day. We tagged three sharks that afternoon in Maui. You can just see the edge of Rob’s arm.” He pointed to the right side of the picture. “He was gloating. I remember it like it was yesterday.”
Lacy noticed one common thread in each picture; the exhilaration that radiated from Dane’s eyes was palpable. There was no doubt that the man in those pictures loved what he was doing. She looked at Dane now as he stood beside her studying the pictures, and she knew that he could never give up what he did for a living—and for the first time, she wondered if she could, or if living a life of continuous travel would be overwhelming for her.
“Excuse me, mister?”
Lacy and Dane turned toward the child’s voice.
“Hi there,” Dane said. “My name’s Dane and this is Lacy.”
You included me. I love that.
“I’m Ashton and I’m six. My mom said you were the shark guy, and I wanted to know what you’re tracking on the television. All I see are red dots.” Ashton’s barely there blond eyebrows were pulled together above his startling blue eyes.
Dane glanced at the little boy’s parents standing behind him with wide smiles. He leaned down so he was eye level with Ashton. “Come with me, buddy. I’ll show you.” He guided him to the monitor. “This is what we call a live-stream monitor. We put tags on sharks, and if the shark has a satellite tag, then that tag sends a signal to a satellite way up in the sky, past the clouds, and we get to see what that signal means here on the monitor.”
“Why do you need a satellite?” Ashton asked.
“Well, you know how you have to plug your television into the wall to get electricity? The satellite is sort of like that for our tags. We need it to read the signals. You wanna know what we track, right?” Dane asked.
Ashton nodded.
He pointed to the monitor. “Those dots that you see, those are sharks. This monitor shows us where the tagged sharks are swimming. See the different colors?”
“Yeah,” Ashton said. His eyes followed Dane’s finger to the colorful dots.
“Each color tells us how long ago the shark appeared in that locatio
n. We call that a ping.”
Ashton laughed.
Lacy watched Dane as he taught the little boy. She swore she could feel her heart opening wider with every word he spoke. He’d make a great father.
Dane continued. “We can track the temperature of the water and the depth where the tagged sharks swim, and we can even track their swim patterns.”
He looked as if talking about sharks and teaching the little boy came both naturally and comfortably.
“I’m afraid of sharks,” Ashton said.
His father put a hand on his shoulder.
“I have a good friend who’s afraid of sharks, too.” Dane winked at Lacy. “But if you try hard enough to understand sharks, you might realize that they’re not really that scary. They’re just trying to live in the world they’ve been given, just like we are.”
Lacy’s mind took a different turn. She began thinking of ways to wrap the educational side of Brave into their marketing, reaching out to schools and even aquariums, science museums, and the like.
“Do you wear one of those wet suits? My dad says the shark thinks people are seals when they wear them, and that’s why they get bit,” Ashton said, looking at his father.
How often does he have to field the same questions, and how can he answer them over and over without any irritation?
“We do wear wet suits, but not for the reasons you think. You see, Ashton, sharks aren’t interested in eating humans, but they’ve been known to bump their noses into anything they see as potential prey.” He used the back of his hand to lightly tap Ashton’s arm. “Like that. When they do that, they emit electrical signals, like little shocks, and human skin makes those shocks conduct. That’s probably hard for you to understand, but if a person’s skin sends a certain signal to the shark, the chances are greater of an attack. Since wet suits don’t interact with electrical signals like animals and human skin does, we wear them to minimize those chances.”
