Dare

by Glenna Sinclair

  He withdrew suddenly, and she moaned with disappointment. Her hands roved between their tightly pressed bodies, searching for the ultimate key to her release. She felt his erection pressing against the cotton barrier of his boxer shorts and tried to fish it out, but Simon's free hand grasped her wrists and prevented her from doing so. The other continued to massage her breast, pinching and rolling her all-too-responsive flesh as he kissed his way down to the elastic line of her underwear. He drew the panties down her eagerly moving hips with his teeth.

  "I want to taste you, Cara. I want you to feel how I want to."

  She felt that clever tongue, then, the one she loved to spar with, lick a velvet caress along her inner folds. Cara cried out in response; she was certain her family would hear her before long.

  "God, Simon!"

  "Oh yes?" he inquired, as if she had just said something particularly interesting and he wanted to know more. He tongued all around her again, before plunging headlong into the honeyed center between her legs.

  Cara was in heaven. She rocked her hips against him, moaning at the sensation of his mouth delving where she should have never allowed him. She was strong-willed, she knew, but not this strong-willed. Simon was going to make her come undone completely, and she couldn't find a protestation of any kind to raise about it.

  When Simon next lifted his head, it was to kiss his way back up her body. "You're so beautiful," he murmured into her skin. Her hands were already on him, freeing him, stroking him; he rocked into her touch, and they moaned together as their foreplay concluded and he slipped inside.

  He bucked into her, and Cara raised her legs off the bed to wind them around his waist. He slid himself in and out, the muscles of his backside clenching, as she dragged her hands down the surging plane of his back.

  "I missed you," he muttered roughly into her ear. "I can't let you forget me, Cara."

  "I won't forget you, Simon," Cara gasped. "Just please… I need you."

  He dragged the palm of his hand down her bare thigh and scooped his fingers beneath her, yanking her to him and burying himself in her completely. She gasped again, wildly, at the way he filled her, at the recognition and the utter bliss. He held her in place against him, forcing her to feel all of him…and him to feel all of her. It was the sensation, rather than the presence of any friction, that sent her over; she tumbled blissfully, and he followed her with a heady groan, snaking his arms beneath her back and embracing her as if he would never let go. She eased back into the bed, caged and happy, and he followed. Her heart beat from the exertion, her body shuddered with fulfillment, and her thoughts…

  …Her thoughts remembered reality, and Cara awoke with a start. She was still in her bedroom, still in a tangle of sweat-soaked sheets, but the body of her midnight lover was nowhere to be found. She scanned the room for any sign that he had been there, but of course she knew it had all been a dream. A steamy, unforgettable dream, definitely on par with the ones that had haunted her back at his mansion before she finally took matters into her own hands.

  Cara raised a hand to her temple and tucked a disheveled piece of hair back behind her ear as Indie entered, tongue lolling happily. She could hear activity from downstairs, and realized that she had already overslept—wrapped in Simon's phantom arms, she had forgotten everything. She was still pissed at him, she would never see him again, and she had still managed to let him get the better of her.

  "Jesus," she muttered to the room.

  CHAPTER 17

  Her dreams about Simon didn't stop there. Every night over the course her break he tempted her with his shadowed, gorgeous body, haunted her with his touch, until Cara had no choice but to give in to her fantasies to avoid going absolutely mad. “Mad”, she was certain, was a term that the Englishman would have used to describe her current state of mind—she hated him silently all the more for it.

  Now that she had access to the Internet once more, a search for Simon Banning brought up everything he had told her: the facts of the car accident, his attempts to save the other driver's life, and, more recently, the pending court case against him. His lawyers were doing a good job of stalling the proceedings while they worked frantically to build their defense case, but public opinion had turned against Simon—where once the U.K. public had evidently loved the handsome young billionaire, they now railed against him. Every link that Cara clicked revealed opinion piece after opinion piece until it made her head spin. Now this was poor journalism, but it was rampant. No wonder Simon had retreated to an unknown part of a foreign countryside in his effort to get away from it all.

  He had inherited his family's fortune, and through smart investing, managed to almost triple it before he was thirty. The Bannings were a veritable empire of entrepreneurs who had also invested wisely; Simon was their only son, and, she was quick to find out, the last remaining member of what had always been a well-liked and respected English dynasty. Most of his money and efforts had been put toward environmental conservation before he pulled his vanishing act from society. Unfortunately, he had yet to vanish off the pages of the U.K.'s worst rags, and parsing every article she found for actual information was starting to give Cara a headache.

  She gave up. She needed to unplug, and cast her mind from Simon Banning, because this was starting to feel like the obsessive behavior following a break-up rather than old fashioned journalistic investigation. Still, something wasn’t sitting right with her—hadn't sat right with her since Simon had divulged his story to her on that rain-washed moor. She understood the family of the other driver's press for money; they were looking for resolution, and for someone to blame other than their son. Simon seemed the perfect target, and she had even witnessed a few of his vices firsthand. Why was she so certain that he hadn't been drunk that night? Was it wishful thinking? Where was the toxicology report on him, on the victim? Had he ever looked at the paperwork himself, or had he trusted other people to tell him that he was in the wrong?

  And even if he had too much to drink that night, that wasn't what the family had focused on when they brought their case against him…which was why Cara was highly suspicious there had not been enough evidence to support Simon's intoxication. It wasn't unheard of for people to go after their rescuers in a courtroom setting for damages incurred by a resuscitation effort—at least, in the United States it wasn't. That was about as far as her knowledge extended without letting herself get too deep down the investigative rabbit hole again. She didn't like it when the puzzle pieces didn't fit together, but she had to keep reminding herself that it wasn't her business anymore. Maybe it had never been her business to begin with.

  Cara passed the time with her family in and out of a partial daze. Her mind was always working when she wasn't keeping a leash on it, either to solve an aspect of Simon's case, or to keep the image of the man himself in her memories, even if all she wanted at the end of the day was to banish him permanently from her thoughts. She checked her phone frequently in the vain hope that the tow truck driver might have passed her number along with her message to Simon, but no one called. So she ate and drank and laughed and pretended to invest in the usual family drama, all the while biding her time for her return to school. Once she was back at Trinity, she was sure things for her would return to normal: no more stormy nights, no more mysteries, no more treacherous housekeepers, and definitely no more billionaires.

  And if she still dreamed about Simon, still longed for the narcotic taste of his lips and the memory of his hands, still despaired for all the arguments and witty conversations they had never had, well…she was sure her course load would banish those desires before long. She was just a student, after all—she really had no business tangling with someone like Simon Banning in the first place. She was confident that a goal-oriented young American woman buried in student loans would be able to forget him before long.

  If only her subconscious would get the memo.

  #

  "Sir?"

  Simon Banning stood over the mantle, star
ing hard into the fire. The light from the hearth flickered, casting shadows along the bent figure of the man and illuminating the plaster cast around his leg.

  "What is it, Gerald?"

  The elderly butler stood in the doorway to the living area. "Sir," the man continued unperturbed. "It is only that the staff is worried about you. You haven't been yourself since…"

  "Since what?" Simon's voice was clipped, the accent only sharpening his tongue. "Or did you mean since who?"

  "…Since the accident," Gerald concluded mildly. Simon gave a forced laugh and turned around. The wind from his sudden movement guttered the fire, gilding his handsome figure in light as much as it cast half of him into complete shadow.

  "To which accident do you refer, Gerald? The one that destroyed my life? Or did you mean the one that very nearly finished the job?"

  "The new car will arrive tomorrow," Gerald said. "With your permission, I will have one of my contacts in town drive it to the estate."

  "Fine." Simon's mouth twisted bitterly. "But it's yours. I doubt if I'll ever get in another car again, Gerald."

  That night, he dreamed about her. His Cara. She came to him in his room and stood before his bed, an utter vision in the white dress he remembered so fondly. Simon sat up, knowing as he observed her that it was a dream, and feeling guilty for how he would use her. But he could do nothing to stop himself from reaching out to her, wanting to forget all that had been said. Wanting to be forgiven. He would awake in the morning, confused and angry, and uncertain of where to direct his feelings.

  But for now, he would have what he wanted.

  The vision of Cara ignored his invitation to join him, at least at first. She stepped into a spill of moonlight and began to shimmy, sensuously, out of her dress. Simon watched, riveted, fascinated, and so, so incredibly hard, as the woman he desired most did a silent striptease in the pale light filtering in from outside his window.

  "Simon," she whispered. "You want me, don't you?"

  "Yes," he breathed. "God, yes, Cara. Please end my misery, even if just for a moment."

  The naked nymph obeyed his request, stepping to his bedside, and Simon pulled her into his arms. He kissed her, nipping and sucking her plump lower lip until it was flush from his abuse and she was gasping with each labored breath. He rubbed his thick length against her, keeping her close to him all the while, until he had assured himself that she was ready. In his dream he could feel how wet she was, but he needed to feel her deeper. Simon raised her hips off him and lowered her down onto his engorged head.

  "Simon!" she exclaimed. The elevated timbre of her voice sent a thrill through him, and he groaned as she sank back onto him with a shudder.

  "I need you, Cara. I need you desperately."

  She moaned his name again, rocking against him, but it wasn't enough. Simon thrust up into her, again and again, bucking so hard he made the bed shake. Cara rode him, her beautiful body slick with sweat and shuddering, and the sight of her drew him ever closer to climax, even if the sensation of her atop him left him unfulfilled. He fixed her eyes on her face as she reached down and cupped the curve of his cheek with her slender hand.

  "Cara." He shuddered. She leaned down, and Simon banded her tightly in his arms, burying his face in her hair and inhaling deeply. He smelled nothing, and the dream…the dream was dissolving.

  "Please tell me it wasn't true," he whispered. "And I'll listen this time. I promise. Just please give me some sign."

  He was in a foul mood the next morning. He had been in a foul mood for weeks. He stumped down the stairs in his cast, throwing his robe closed over his tensed and hardened midriff, when a polite voice cleared itself beneath him. Simon made it to the landing before turning to acknowledge the source of the noise.

  "Sir." The maid held the hall phone out to him. "It's the man from the tow company, from…before. He said he was unable to get in touch with you while you were at the hospital because you refused to see anyone."

  "Yes," Simon said impatiently. "What is it? Does he require another signature?"

  "No, sir. He says it's nothing to do with forms this time, but that he made a promise to someone and he intends to keep it." The maid's face pinched in confusion at this, but she continued on.

  "He says he has a message for you."

  CHAPTER 18

  "Cara," her advisor barked at her. "I know you can hear me. Get in here. You're not going to want to miss this."

  With a gusty sigh, Cara sat back from her desk and rose obediently. That was how her advisor began all of his solicitations—right before he was about to assign her an extra uncredited workload that she didn't want to deal with.

  "This had better be good, Hollaway." She was the only student who talked back to him, but she fell in line just like the rest. Unlike the rest, she always made her deadlines, which was why he continued to allow her the leniency to do so.

  Professor Bernard Hollaway was a fit and fierce-looking man of approximately fifty who had given up his hairline a long time ago; he now shaved his skull almost every morning, often when he arrived early to the office.

  Cara entered and bypassed the chair in front of Professor Hollaway's desk to join him behind his monitor. When she realized he was only logged into his desktop, and had no browser windows open to show her, she stood back and crossed her arms. "Was that code for 'I don't want the other students to know why I'm calling you in here'?" she surmised. Hollaway eased back in his chair and unnecessarily straightened a stack of files on his desk.

  "I've got an assignment for you," he said. "A real one. A real doozy. It's going to get you out of the classroom, and you're going to be gone a while."

  "Where?" Cara asked curiously. She had never heard of this sort of opportunity coming up before, and definitely not for a student.

  "New York." Hollaway glanced at her hard through the light reflection off his lenses, as if trying to observe whether or not she was up for it. Cara crossed her arms and tried to appear skeptical, rather than excited, about his offer.

  "Do I get credit for it?" She had to cover her bases. "Who will be paying for the trip?"

  "The client. And it will be credited." Hollaway straightened his files again. "I'm afraid I can't tell you any more about it. It was one of the stipulations of the client. So, you in?"

  "How long will I be gone?" Cara's brain was awhirl with questions, but she already knew her answer. She needed this distraction to get her mind off things. She had thought coming back to school would be enough of a diversion for her, but her classes were unstimulating. Her dreams, on the other hand…

  But that was the real problem. She still hadn't been able to forget about Simon Banning, and it felt like it was only getting worse by the day. She found herself staring at maps or at the GPS on her phone, retracing the backroad she had taken, her eyes eventually arriving at the pin that marked his house. She had deleted the pin, but that didn't change the fact that if she got in her car and drove, she was fairly confident she would know where to find him. What was he doing out there, all alone? How did he pass his days now that she was gone?

  There wasn't a day that went by that Cara didn't wonder whether he had gotten her message. Was Melinda still employed with him? What could she possibly be planning next? A woman with her patience and sharp mind just had to have a backup plan. It's not as if she had waited, biding her time, on the off-chance that someone like Cara would break down outside the house.

  She thought about the message, too, because she wondered if Simon would ever come and seek her out at school. And that was the most dangerous of all, because it was something she hoped for, when Cara knew she should be forgetting all about him now and getting on with her life. But life seemed so boring now without Simon in it to throw her a curveball, to make her pulse race when he entered a room, to make her hot and bothered with just a look…

  "Can't say." Hollaway was peering at her again, as if wondering where she had just gone. Cara came back to herself and met her advisor's gaze evenly.


  "I'm in."

  "Thought you would be." Hollaway lifted his too-straight pile of folders and produced a plane ticket. Cara blinked, but took it without a second thought. Things were moving fast on this. Then again, she had always been a fast-mover. "You head out tomorrow morning. I'll forward you the address of the hotel where the client has requested to meet. Come back with a good story to tell, all right? And why don't you give me something to publish while you're at it? I'm sick to death of all these lists and opinion pieces you guys keep turning in to me. I want a real story."

  #

  That was how Cara Langford, journalism major, found herself in the lobby of the grandest hotel she had ever seen in her life.

  The Four Seasons New York was one of the top ten luxury hotels in the city. If she hadn't done the research beforehand, she would have known it on sight. Fifty-two floors, and her room was located on the fiftieth.

  Better start walking.

  Cara grabbed an elevator to herself and shot to the top of the building. She was grateful for the opportunity to be alone to compose her thoughts; there was nothing like hurtling upward into the sky in a tiny box to put things into perspective. She needed to wash up and change before her meeting with her mystery client. She didn't even know if the client was a man or a woman at this point—all she knew was that she was to meet them in the bar downstairs at nine o'clock. Fairly late for any kind of interview, but maybe this was to be more of an introduction.