Dare

by Glenna Sinclair

  "…How can you possibly arrive at a conclusion like that already?" he inquired. He did not appear angry with her directness, only genuinely perplexed. "I have a predilection for alcohol, it's true, but there's nothing much else to do when the weather gets like this. Why do you perceive it as a problem?"

  "It's not the fact of your drinking," Cara said. "But it's the fact that I can only assume you started this morning, early, when we were both having breakfast, and have carried on like this all day. It doesn't seem to having a significant effect on you outside of…" But she quickly skipped over a recollection of their earlier exertions. "It doesn't seem to be having a significant effect on you, which leads me to assume you have already developed an extremely high tolerance to it. A man of your size and weight should be able to put away more than someone like me, it's true, but this sort of extended day-drinking shouldn't be sustainable, unless it's something you're used to doing often."

  Simon said nothing immediate at the conclusion of her monologue. After a moment, he set his drink down on the mantle, but Cara noted that it was empty anyway.

  "Go on then," he said quietly. "What else?"

  She hesitated slightly, but the invitation to continue had been extended. She noted the amused smile had faded from Simon's face, but the way the flickering fire cast shadows across his expression was making it difficult for Cara to interpret what he was thinking. "You're lonely," she said finally. "I don't know how long you've been living this way, but I'm guessing you've been here a while. Real friendships with the people you employ, with the individuals whose livelihoods you are directly responsible for, are next to impossible…but I think you know this already. So you can't use them as an excuse for not seeking out human connection. I think between alcohol and solitude, you're slowly killing yourself. I think you might even be doing it on purpose."

  The room plunged into silence in the aftermath of her conclusion. Even the thundering of the rain outside seemed to dissolve into the background as Cara felt the weight of her words. It had been a fleeting thought, to be sure, but she hadn't expected that she would express it now to the man. Her anger at him had long subsided, and she appeared to now be processing what she had said as much as he was. They stood across from one another, but neither made eye contact.

  "What did you say it was you do for a living?" Simon asked after a long moment.

  "I'm a student," she said simply. The spell was broken, and she moved away from the fire to occupy a chair close to it. The cushion was so wide that she was able to pull her legs up and cross them beneath her. She felt suddenly self-conscious, though she didn't know why she should feel this way. She had only been telling Simon the truth as she saw it. Besides, after tomorrow, it wasn’t like she would ever see him again.

  The man did something surprising, then: he moved to join her where she sat, lowering himself down onto the rug until his head was level with her knee. Cara hadn't expected the change in positions, and drew back slightly at his sudden closeness…but Simon did nothing untoward, only propped his arm on the cushion beside one of her legs. She wished she didn't feel the warmth of his proximity so acutely—maybe it was only due to the fact that he had been standing so close to the fire.

  "It's interesting," he said finally. "To have an outsider's perspective on things. You are right in presuming that these are not things anyone on the staff would feel comfortable telling me. It is a lot for me to process."

  "Feel free to forget everything I just said," Cara mentioned. She hated herself the next instant for trying to retract her statements, but she was afraid she had overstepped. "I mean it. It's just…" She struggled silently for the words. She hadn't been expecting such a ponderous reaction from the man—then again, Simon always reacted in a way that she wasn't expecting. "I…I don't know why I felt like telling you. It's none of my business. You're just…" She sighed gustily. "I felt like you deserved to know. Because I think you are a good person. At the end of the day, you've been nothing but compassionate toward my situation—even if you do drive me a little bit crazy. I'd even go so far as to say I might miss you when I'm gone."

  She let her eyes fall to him, and saw that he was looking up at her from his position on the floor. The hand beside her leg moved, and she felt the touch of his fingers alight on her thigh, gently. The mansion was kept warm, and she had left her room earlier in a skirt and stockings—maybe it had been her intention to make him look, a little, at the tight young body he had abandoned back in the pool.

  "Miss me?" he repeated. "I doubt it. You'll forget all about me once you're back out there in the world. I'd prefer it if you did, actually."

  "You're lying." The ghost of a smile turned up one side of Cara's face, but it was hard to maintain amusement at his claims with his hand moving up toward the high hem of her skirt. She didn't sense any lascivious intention behind the man's touch—it was almost absentminded on his part, as if his hand sought the comfort of a physical connection without his full awareness. The drag of his fingertips across her bare skin set her heart fluttering faster, and all of a sudden she wanted it again—the press of his fingers in her most secret spaces, the feeling of him stroking her deep inside. One hit and she was already addicted to the rush he could give her, the feeling of forbidden pleasure stolen in a heated moment.

  "I am," he admitted. "I don't want you to forget me so easily. That's why I—" He appeared to notice the ascent of his hand then, but he didn't withdraw it. After a moment's quiet consideration, he allowed it to trespass beneath the girl's skirt. Cara, no longer able to contain her reaction to his touch, shuddered at the luxurious feeling. She felt his fingers massage her inner thigh, his thumb stroking measured sweeps across her trembling flesh. Her muscles tensed at the intruder in a last, desperate attempt to resume control of her body's too-eager responsiveness. He was driving her crazy, but she refused to come undone so early and so easily—especially when he was watching her to gauge her response.

  "That's why I had to touch you," he whispered. "That's why I couldn't help myself in the pool. From the start, you seemed so eager to enter my life and throw it into complete turmoil, that I had to make you feel some of what you had done to me. I've been desperate to claim some part of you ever since you walked through my front gates. I never realized you would be so willing. I thought just being around me infuriated you."

  "You do infuriate me," Cara panted. The hand was pushing against her harder now, gripping her thigh almost possessively, and she wanted so badly to be possessed by him. "I can't wait to leave. I wish I could leave right now."

  "You're lying." Now it was his turn to flip the quiet accusation on her. "I felt you in the pool earlier. You might remember how deeply I felt you." As he spoke the word, she felt the stroke of a finger across the crotch of her underwear, but he gave her nothing more. Cara tried to summon the wherewithal to hold perfectly still beneath his toying caresses, but it was not going well for her. "You let me inside you, Cara. I never imagined you would be so tight."

  "You can't have had long to imagine it," Cara noted quietly.

  "Since I first laid eyes on you," he said. "I've wanted absolutely nothing else. I barely slept at all last night, and that was before I'd even spoken to you. The thought of your body beneath the sheets that I owned… It seemed cruel that I shouldn't be beneath them with you. I don't think I've ever met someone as exquisitely and effortlessly sexy as you are. And that fire…" Simon breathed in suddenly, and Cara realized he wasn't talking about the one burning in the hearth beside them. "What a temptation you are."

  "Just let yourself be tempted, then." Cara pushed back against him, and now it was Simon's turn to shudder. "Come on," she egged him. The fire in her, the fire that enflamed Simon, made it sound almost as if she had just issued a challenge. "I promise I won't think you're a bad host if you take advantage of your position."

  Simon had risen to kneel before her in the chair. Cara uncurled her legs, and was pleasantly startled when the man grasped her thighs and yanked her against him. S
eeing him momentarily lose control of his urges for her was an incredible aphrodisiac. Cara threaded her arms around his neck to keep herself upright, moving in for a kiss in the same instant she ground her hips against his.

  Simon moaned deeply, and Cara took advantage of his helplessly parted lips to return the kiss he had given her back in the pool. Their tongues met in a hot tangle, and she slowly undulated against him all the while, relishing the pelvic friction. She felt Simon's hand come up beneath her ass to grip it, completely oblivious to the obstruction of her skirt; his fingers pressed against the tissue-thin fabric of her underwear from behind as he grasped her rear, dictating the rhythm of her movements. It wasn't long at all before Cara felt the telltale bulge in the front of his pants that told her she was doing an excellent job. She aligned it for her next upward sweep, and was rewarded for her efforts when they both gasped aloud into the kiss; were they not wearing clothes, they would already be fucking. The thought sent a dark thrill through her, and she insistently thrust her hips against him again. The hands on her waist pushed her to an immediate stop, and she could see that Simon was breathing raggedly.

  "I can't," he said. "This is a mistake, with you. I'm your host, and…you shouldn't feel as if you owe me anything, Cara. It's best if I don't let myself get into this position with you again."

  Simon rose, and Cara shifted forward in the chair, pulling her skirt back down. She was too aroused to feel properly angry this time; there was confusion, certainly, but also a vague sort of amusement felt at Simon's expense. The Englishman who had proved himself so adept at seduction looked ruffled, torn between his duties as a host and his desires as a man. His auburn hair, still just a bit too long, fell in his face, and he pushed it back distractedly.

  She watched him leave the room, still aching for him, but she didn't follow after him. She took satisfaction in the fact that there was only one place he could escape to with an erection like that, and that there could only be one thought on his mind as he took care of the inconvenience himself.

  CHAPTER 7

  That night Cara dreamed that Simon entered her room.

  In the dream she sat up expectantly. She was unsurprised to see him, had even been anticipating that he would come. A low knock, and then the door eased open before him. He stood in the doorway, silhouetted by the light of the hall. Cara shifted the blankets aside eagerly, about to stand to go meet him, but Simon was already entering the room.

  He showed no hesitation in advancing on her. That's how she knew it was a dream. She knew it, also, because he was shirtless, and she could see that the scars she had observed on his back now extended to his neck and chest.

  She didn't care—it was her brain's way of telling her that she needed to focus more on solving the puzzle of the man's accident, when all she really wanted to do in that moment was solve the puzzle of how they fit together. Simon came to her, and she threw her arms around him as he mounted the bed and forced her down beneath him, moving himself with urgency between her thighs. Suddenly they were naked and entwined, sweating, rocking and moaning and calling out each other's names into the night…

  Cara awoke the next morning in a tangle of sheets and matted blond hair. Her heart was hammering in her throat, and she ached all over with unreleased desire. She couldn't take much more of this. She needed to leave today, or she risked devolving into a complete sexual deviant. In the aftermath of her scorching hot dream, she could scarcely think of anything else.

  She took a very long, very cold shower, and allowed the fantasy events from last night to fade away beneath the sobering sting of the water. Her struggle to cast the dream aside left her thinking on the very real events of yesterday, which weren't much better by comparison. There was no denying that Cara and Simon were extremely attracted to each other, to the point that they were willing to forego their usual reservations to give into their passions completely… Well, almost completely. Not completely enough. It was disappointing to think about, but maybe an ultimate union between them really was better left to dreams.

  Cara stepped out of the shower, feeling slightly guilty for subconsciously using Simon like that. Her embarrassment only increased as the day wore on, until she could scarcely look her host in the eye without blushing at the thought of what he had been unknowingly doing to her all night long. Simon, too, seemed to have some difficulty looking at her directly, but this may have only been due to the memory of where his hands had been—repeatedly—the day before.

  "I was going to go down to the road and have a look at your car," he mentioned over their late breakfast together. "If you'd like to come with me."

  "Probably a good idea," Cara agreed, and the two of them set off together into the morning. A rare break in the weather allowed for their journey off the property, but they dressed appropriately: sweaters, rain slickers, and galoshes that easily extended over the top of Cara's knees. There was nothing her size stocked in the closet, so she was once more forced to wear his. They slogged together through the mud as they made their way down the driveway.

  Her car was parked along the side of the road where she had left it. The ditch beside it was filled almost to brimming with rushing, clay-colored water—Cara really didn't like the look of it, but it seemed a while yet before it was liable to spill over into the road. She checked all four doors for any sign of a leak as Simon stooped to examine the black mud below the undercarriage.

  "Somehow, I thought I'd be able to solve this for you," he apologized. "The servants already gave me a full report of the damage, but I wanted to have a look myself. It looks like you're completely bogged down. We might be able to get you out if everyone on staff spent the day out here with shovels and boards, but that unfortunately wouldn't solve the situation with your back tire. It's…"

  "Completely blown," Cara finished for him. "I know. I guess I was hoping you might have a spare somewhere in your garage."

  "Nothing that would fit this model, unfortunately."

  She thought she didn't need to ask what kind of car Simon drove. She was sure it was something expensive, something he wouldn't want to risk out on the open road. She was sure that he…

  "There's the potential that I could drive you into town," he mused. His offer took her by complete surprise. Cara stood up from where she had been rummaging through her glove compartment, blinking in astonishment. Simon still wasn't looking at her, but he was gazing back down the long stretch of road this time, musing on his idea as if he could see it coming toward them in the distance. He was wearing a knit winter hat to keep the chill wind off; it pulled his shaggy hair back from his face, and she could see his expression with striking clarity. It took her a moment to recover from how handsome he looked.

  "I have it on good authority that the road south is blocked," Simon continued. "That's on the authority of Gerald and Melinda, anyway, who've scarcely been away from their radio in the kitchen. It's possible I could take you up north into the next town. It would be a few hours' drive to get there, and it would be in the direction opposite of where you're trying to head. But you might stand a better chance of convincing someone face-to-face to drive back out here with you and help you."

  "You personally?" Cara inquired, before realizing that the standalone question didn't make any sense. "I mean, you would take me into town?"

  Simon ducked his chin quickly, appearing to regret his words. "One of the servants would take you," he said eventually. "I have a professional driver residing on the property that I can vouch for personally. He would be happy to finally be put to some use."

  "I'd like it better if you drove me, though." Cara closed the passenger side door and circled back around behind the car. Simon still wouldn't look at her.

  "Thank you," he said sincerely. "But trust me when I say it's better for everyone this way."

  "But I don't trust you," Cara pointed. "I think you're sneaky. I think you seduce unsuspecting young women you find broken down along the road, and that you listen in on peoples' phone calls."

&nbs
p; Simon glanced up sharply at this, but Cara was smiling victoriously. He hadn't let himself look at her all morning, but now she had his full attention.

  The man immediately saw what her game had been, and smiled sheepishly in response. "You don't want me to drive you, Cara," he said finally. "I don't have a license to drive here in America, and I'm certainly not going to let you behind the wheel of my car while I ride shotgun. Judging from the state of your own vehicle, it would be far too expensive a risk."

  "So I guess I'm stuck here," Cara concluded as they walked back up the road to the mansion together. It was certainly not the outcome she had been hoping for when she woke up that morning—at least, not the outcome she was willing to admit she had been hoping for. Regardless, she tried not to sound too giddy at the prospect of one last night spent in Simon's company. A sly look his way caught the tail end of a smile, before the Englishmen glanced off in the opposite direction.

  "That would be a good guess," he mused.

  "Shall we go swimming again?" Cara suggested innocently. The man immediately froze on the path beside her, but she kept walking as if she hadn't noticed. A few quick strides carried him back abreast of her.

  "Absolutely not," he whispered harshly, as if they were in danger of being overheard. Cara's eyebrow tugged upward in amusement, but she made no remark as they continued up the driveway. "Rather, I mean…you are more than welcome to use the facility as you wish. I've had…quite enough swimming for the week."

  He was making it too easy to tease him this morning, and Cara wondered at the flustered change. She hadn't noticed him drinking over breakfast—maybe that had something to do with it? Or maybe it was something else that now triggered his easy embarrassment. Something like a dream…

  They had barely made it halfway up the hill before the clouds converged once more overhead. The sunlight waned, and they simultaneously glanced up to watch it vanish completely. Cara felt a first drop of rain splash down on her nose, and scrunched her expression in distaste.