Dare wasn’t sure what he was doing right now, only that he didn’t want to be doing anything else.
Giving in to this attraction for Haven was probably going to make things even harder when it was time for her to leave—harder for both of them. But she didn’t seem to be resisting, either. In fact, her lack of resistance was fucking with his head—making him think, making him want, making him regret. Toss into the mix the sexual tension that always seemed to be crackling in the air between them, and Dare felt like he was holding on to the end of a rope that was fraying at the middle and sure to give way.
With Haven wrapped tight around his back on his ride—something that felt more goddamned right than it should—Dare pulled out of his driveway and headed toward the lake. Luckily it was a warm afternoon, because the sky had grown overcast while they’d been in the house. It was probably good that she still wanted to swim, though, because watching her make herself comfortable in his space did things to him he didn’t want to think too closely about.
He’d liked seeing her there.
Somehow, her presence had brought the house to life, had made it feel less solitary. Dare didn’t think that was because she was one of the few women he’d ever brought there—and the only one whom he had any personal interest in. It was something about Haven herself, and the way she made him feel.
Fuck, you are so screwed. Dare pulled a right onto the road that headed out by Ike’s place and the lake. As he leaned into the turn, Haven’s arms tightened around him, and he reveled in the touch.
“Faster?” he yelled over his shoulder.
“Yes!” she shouted back, her arms tightening even more.
His girl liked it fast, and he loved the hell out of that. Refusing to analyze the thought too closely, Dare twisted the throttle. They roared up the mountain road, freedom and wind rushing over their skin. He liked it fast, too. It was easier to forget your problems with your knees and fists in the breeze.
By the time they reached the lake, the sky was spitting raindrops at them. Dare pulled into the dirt parking lot nearest the little beach everybody in the club used for swimming. He killed the engine and turned in his seat to face her. “What d’ya think about—”
The question died in his throat.
Because under the helmet’s clear visor, Haven wore the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen in his life.
“God, I love riding,” she said. She lifted the helmet from her head, shaking out her new brown hair. The movement made him hard. “What do I think about what?” She grinned up at the sky as a few fat drops landed on her face.
“The weather,” Dare said distractedly, just struck stupid by her declaration, her beauty, the knowledge that riding with him made her so damn happy.
She shrugged, her expression entirely untroubled. “I’m gonna get wet anyway.”
He swallowed around the desire stalking through his body. “Are you now?” he asked, purposely playing on the innuendo of her words when he knew she hadn’t meant anything by them. Just to see if she’d take the bait.
Lips pressed together in a mischievous smirk, she looked him right in the eyes. “Sure hope so.”
Game. Fucking. On.
He took the helmet from her and hung it on a handlebar. Then he turned back to her and ran his fingers teasingly over her lips. Rain droplets came a little more frequently, not enough to be a shower, but enough to promise that one was on the way. “I do love you wet,” he said, his cock jerking in his jeans as her mouth dropped open and her tongue tentatively licked the tip of his middle finger.
“Well, that’s good,” she said, the words breathy.
He couldn’t fucking believe she was playing along with this. Damn if she hadn’t come a long way since they first met. It made him proud of her. It made him protective of her. It made him want to see how much braver she could be if she felt safe enough to really let herself go. “Why’s that?” he asked, leaning in and stroking his nose along the bridge of hers.
Her head tilted back, offering her mouth up for a kiss. “Because . . . I’m . . .” She swallowed thickly. “. . . getting wet now.” She’d spoken the words so quietly that it was clear they’d been hard for her to admit, but she’d still found the courage to say them.
And, man, hearing her admit that she was wet slayed him.
“Fuck, Haven,” he said, his mouth coming down hard on hers.
She moaned into the kiss, her hands grasping his neck, his hair. The kiss was immediately urgent, frenzied, and the arousal slingshotting through Dare’s body had his imagination running away with him. He pictured himself pulling her off the bike, shoving her jeans down, bending her over the seat . . .
A long, low rumble of thunder, and the skies opened up for real.
Haven gasped and flinched, pulling her lips away from the kiss. Her gaze flickered to the sky as all the playfulness bled from her expression. She tried to mask the anxiety the storm caused her, but it was crystal clear in her eyes when she looked at him again.
He wanted nothing more in that moment than to make her feel safe.
“Let’s save swimming for another day,” he said, stroking his fingers down her wet face. Even as it soaked her hair, the rain did nothing to detract from how fucking gorgeous she was.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He kissed her. “No need for that,” he said. “Now hold on tight.”
Between the wet roads, the force of the downpour, and having a novice rider in his saddle, the ride home took a little longer than the way there. He regretted that only because every time it thundered, Haven flinched against him, her face burrowing against his shoulders, her embrace tightening around his chest. She’d done the same thing that night he’d found her asleep on the porch, and it made a place deep inside of him ache with satisfaction that she sought solace in his body—and it equally made him need to know what had caused her fear of storms in the first place.
Home again, they ran up to the front porch, absolutely soaked to the bone. “Let me grab some towels,” Dare said, turning to her after he shut the door and flicked on the light. And that was when he noticed that her pale pink tank top had gone totally sheer in the rain, the white lace pattern on her bra completely visible through the fabric, and the dark pink of her erect nipples apparent, too. Jesus.
“Okay,” she said, shivering.
“Right.” He made for the second-floor full bath.
Thunder crashed loud enough to make the windows rattle.
Haven’s gasp reached him on the stairs, and he turned on a dime and went back to her. Taking her hand, he said, “Come on.”
“I’ll drip water everywhere,” she said, following him despite the protest.
He turned just before the bottom step. “You think I care about getting the floor wet over taking care of you?”
Her eyes went wide. “I . . . I don’t . . .”
Dare silenced her with a kiss, needing her to know, needing her to believe. “The answer’s no, Haven.” He led her upstairs to the bathroom that sat in the center of the hall between the house’s two bedrooms.
“Wow,” she said, taking in the room. “This bathroom is amazing.”
Dare handed her a towel from the corner linen closet and grabbed one for himself. He followed her gaze around the room, over the large all-glass stall shower, over the spa tub beneath the big picture window overlooking the woods, over all the marble, granite, and steel surfaces. When he’d built the place, he’d wanted to do the kitchen and bathroom right, even if he wasn’t sure he’d use all the bells and whistles.
“Thanks,” Dare said, watching her run the towel over her face, her hair, her arms. She shivered again. “Let me find you some dry clothes.”
“Oh,” she said, looking down at herself. “I brought extra clothes. Are they still out in the bike?”
“Yeah,” Dare said, looking at the hard rain blurring his view of the trees out the window. “You can borrow something of mine, though. Save me from getting wet again.”
When she nodded, he disappeared into his bedroom, debating what to give her. He settled quickly on an old, soft, black Harley T-shirt. Unsure what she’d be most comfortable in for bottoms, he took a pair of old blue sweatpants that would likely be miles too big on her and a pair of gray boxers. The thought of seeing her in any of this—any of his clothes—flooded all kinds of satisfaction through his blood. Because despite the myriad reasons why it wasn’t gonna happen, with every moment he spent with Haven an increasingly bigger part of him wanted to claim her for himself—in every and any way he could.
Back in the bathroom, he found Haven sitting on the tub’s wide edge, staring out at the rain, the towel tight around her shoulders. “Hey,” he said.
She whipped around and rose, like he’d caught her doing something she shouldn’t. “Hey.”
He wasn’t having that. Walking up to her, he held out the clothes, but he didn’t release them when she grabbed for them. “We might as well wait out the rain here, so make yourself at home, Haven. Sit where you want. Open doors and cabinets. Help yourself to anything I have. Got it?”
A small smile. “Okay.”
Finally, he let go of the clothing, but he didn’t back away—because he couldn’t back away. Arousal still surged through his blood from their flirtation at the lake, from her looking so fucking perfect in his space, from the way her soaked shirt revealed just a hint of the porcelain of her skin beneath.
A low, drawn-out rumble of thunder, and Haven’s eyes widened, just a little.
He cupped his hand around her neck and adored the way she leaned into the touch. “Tell me why you’re scared of storms,” Dare said, protectiveness rising up inside him. If he understood her fears, maybe he could help her battle them. For however long they had together.
Haven’s eyes skittered away from his, and her cheeks paled. “I used to love them,” she said, her voice going distant. “The raw power and sound of them. But when I was fifteen, I had my first serious boyfriend. His name was Zach, and he . . . he was my first,” she said quietly, “and only.”
Something deep inside Dare disliked hearing about another man having known her in ways Dare didn’t, but the admission that she hadn’t been with anyone since sucker-punched him with such raw sadness for her that it outweighed the jealousy that threatened.
“I don’t know how, but my father found us together”—she made a face that made it clear exactly what kind of together that’d been—“and he . . . he was furious. Said I’d ruined myself, and that if I wanted to act like a b-bitch in heat, he’d treat me like one.” Her shoulders curled in as her chin dropped, and it reminded Dare so much of the way she’d acted during their first conversation that it just about broke his fucking heart—and made him want to rage.
His hand slid up to cup her cheek, his thumb lazily stroking the soft skin under her eye. “You don’t have to tell me more if you don’t want to.”
A little shake of her head, and for the first time in long minutes, she lifted her gaze to meet his. “I want to. This is me, you know? And I guess . . . I don’t know why, but . . . I guess I’d really just like to let you know me.”
Jesus if those words didn’t reach right into his chest and own him. The sentiment resonated so deep inside him that the world rocked a little around his feet, shaking him to the core. Because there weren’t many people who knew about his mom and Kyle, and Dare’s role in their deaths. For the most part, their murders were a secret shame he carried, one that left him feeling like almost no one knew the real depth of his pain—or his failings. And sometimes he felt like such a goddamned fraud that he could barely look at his reflection in a mirror.
“What did he do?” Dare asked, his growing anger coming through in the gritty tone of his voice.
The cast of her eyes went bleak. “We had two Rotties, Roxy and Xena. He chained me to the dog run in the backyard with them for two days. He put my food in their food dishes, and though the dogs were never mean to me, I wasn’t able to compete with them for it, either. The second night, it stormed. One of the worst storms I’d ever seen in my life—or maybe it only seemed that way because I was out in it. I think the only thing that kept me from going crazy was that the dogs laid right with me all night. They were scared, too. I’m not sure who comforted who more.”
White-hot fury ripped through Dare’s veins. He’d chained her up like a fucking dog? Dare’s imagination unhelpfully provided a picture of what she must’ve looked like, lying on the ground soaking wet, a chain around her neck, dogs huddled up against her shivering body. The revenge fantasies instantly tearing through his mind were gruesomely satisfying. There was little Dare hated more than a cowardly bully who got off on torturing those weaker than him. And Rhett Randall was clearly that in spades. “Haven—”
“I’ve never liked storms since,” she said, as if she hadn’t heard him say her name.
Little fucking wonder. He scrubbed his hand over his lips, the gesture making him realize that his fury had him trembling, had him right on the edge of getting on his motorcycle and road tripping it down to Georgia to put an end to her bastard of a father once and for fucking all.
“Are you okay?” she asked, her eyes searching his.
“Am I okay?” he rasped. “Jesus, Haven—”
She ducked her chin as if he’d reprimanded her.
“No,” he said, forcing her to look at him again. “I will never be okay hearing about all the ways you’ve been wronged. I want to hear them, because I want to know you. I want that, Haven. But right now I would squeeze the life out of your father with my bare hands if I had the opportunity, and watching awareness bleed from his eyes would be one of the most satisfying moments of my life. I would revel in it.”
Her mouth dropped open, and he immediately worried that the violence of his words would scare her, would make her think that her father and he were cut from the same evil cloth. Fuck, Dare had often worried that was true about him and his own father—and it was clear that Butch Kenyon and Rhett Randall had a goddamned scary amount in common.
“You’re the only man I’ve ever known who wanted to stand up for me,” she said, tears making her eyes glassy for the first time. “The only man I’ve ever really known who didn’t want to hurt me.”
The words unleashed a chaos of thoughts inside his mind. He wanted to promise to always protect her. He wanted to rebuild her trust in men one day, one kiss, one touch at a time. And he was terrified that circumstances were about to keep him from being there to do any of it—and that she’d find somebody else instead. Because how could she not? Gorgeous, kind, brave, talented—any man would be privileged to have her.
“I would protect you with my life,” he bit out, surprised by the vehemence of the declaration, but meaning it deep down into his soul. When had her happiness and safety become so fundamentally important to him? How had that happened?
Haven blinked until she reined in the threatening tears. Slowly, tentatively, she cupped her palm around his hand where it still held her face. And then, with a deep breath and in a trembling voice, she said, “I appreciate that more than you’ll ever know, but I wonder . . . I wonder if there’s any way . . .”
The words hung there until Dare thought he’d lose his fucking mind. “What, Haven? Say it. You can say anything to me.”
Those fierce blue eyes looked straight into his, full of a need that reached inside his chest and squeezed. “I wonder if you’d have any interest in helping me live the life your protection has finally given me,” she rushed out.
“Meaning what?”
Heat poured into her cheek under his hand. “Well, you see, I’ve been making this list.”