Dare Me (6 page)

She cursed.  No, she didn’t.  The truth was, except for
sharing an occasional glass of wine with a fellow agent in the bistro two
blocks away from T-45’s headquarters in Paris, she rarely allowed her mind to
shut down long enough to evoke the true benefits of relaxation.  Not in the
shower.  Not when she swam laps in the pool or when she worked out on the
technically advanced elliptical trainer she committed to for an hour every day.

Even in her dreams, she conducted intense but methodical
searches for objects that were both unnamed and undefined, never allowing her
complete rest from either her psyche or her conscious life.

And now, he wanted her to chuck all that and step into a
steamy, fragrant tub of water and soak while he watched?

She untied her robe.  “Turn around,” she instructed.

Surprisingly, he did as he was told.  She stripped and
stepped into the milky water.

Only after she caught the glimmer of his smile in the
reflective glass of two antique mirrors—one hung just a few feet away from her
and one behind—did she realize her gullibility.

“You have become quite the voyeur in my absence,” she challenged,
refusing to drop instantly down into the water just to avoid his gaze.  He’d
seen her naked before.  She’d seen him.  Despite the flush simmering through
her skin, she wouldn’t surrender to her discomfort, not when such a move would
mean more than she wanted to admit to him about his affect on her.

“How can a man resist when the view is so compelling?”

He didn’t turn around, but continued to watch her through
the cross reflection of the two mirrors.  Slowly, the rush of warmth from her
blush dissipated.  Standing in the hot water, the air above suddenly chilled. 
When her nipples started to peak, she eased into the hot water.

He clucked his tongue in disappointment.

Immersed to just below her shoulders, Macy couldn’t help but
feel completely exposed when Dante neared.  He lingered just a foot or so away,
his foot perched on the edge of the fountain, which she realized was tinkling
with a soft, natural music that invited her to close her eyes and breathe
deeply.  In the steaming hot water, the sweet rose scents weakened her resolve. 
Her head swam, so she braced her hands on the sides of the tub.

“What did you do?” she asked.

“Nothing, yet.”

“I feel light-headed,” she admitted.  If she’d been dealing
with a T-45 operative instead of the head of the Arm, she’d suspect he’d
drugged the water or perhaps even the perfume.  But the Arm generally didn’t
operate with such chemical slyness.  They tended to barge in, take what they
wanted and then clean up the mess afterward—much like the man who ran their
organization.

Though he didn’t seem to be working in bulldozer mode
tonight, did he?  Even his voice contained a soft, lazy drawl unlike any she’d
ever heard from him, even while undercover.

He picked up a large seashell from the edge of the fountain
beside her.  “Light-headed?  That’s called relaxation, Macy.  I told you last
night I wouldn’t get you drunk.  I also won’t drug you.  When you return to me,
you’ll do so of your own volition.”

She snorted, but without half the derision she’d intended. 
With the seashell, he scooped and poured the hot, scented water over her
shoulders and across the back of her neck.  The sensation was smooth and milky,
as if he’d doused her in a melted emollient.

She released her hands from the side of the tub.

“I won’t return to you,” she said, her voice soft with
drowsiness.

“Hmm,” he replied, pouring another shell full of water
across her shoulders.

Arguing further would make no difference.  She was in no
position to convince him of anything.  At this moment, she couldn’t convince
herself that the sky was blue in the daytime.  Slowly but surely, her mind grew
too befuddled to form a single coherent thought.  When she forced herself to
think, her focus fell to the bed in the master suite—their next destination. 
She found herself anticipating the moment when she crawled into those cool,
high-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets.

“What are you thinking about?”

She shook her head.  “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Very much.”

“Sorry,” she said with a sigh, leaning back against the
porcelain.  “My body is yours to command, not my mind.”

This time, he poured the water across her neck, so that the
flow teased the tips of her breasts.

“Does that mean if I tell you to touch yourself, you’ll
comply?”

Her eyes flashed open.  She’d walked right into this one,
hadn’t she?

“Is that what it’ll take to get you off?” she asked.

He chuckled.  “I’m not interested in my own pleasure
tonight, Macy.  Though I’ll admit that watching anything you do excites me.” 
He poured another stream of warm across her collarbone.  “How does the water
feel?  Hot enough for you?”

At least he’d gotten that part right.  The temperature would
likely scald anyone else, but the heat felt both familiar and new to her at the
same time.  “Perfect.”

“And the scent?  I added an essential oil to the bath, which
will account for the perfume and slick feel of the water as it sluices over
your skin.”

She moved ever so slightly, so that the flow of water
fulfilled his sensual promise, but she focused on the truth to keep her
antagonism going.  She couldn’t give in to him—not mentally.  Not emotionally.

Well, she could, but would she hate herself in the morning?

“I’ve never been one for roses,” she said.

“Really?  I could have sworn the scent would evoke some
sweet memories for you.  Perhaps I miscalculated.”

Hell.  Dante never miscalculated, and the moment he
mentioned sweet memories, her mind spun back to the past, long before they’d
met, to a summer she’d spent with her grandmother at her home in Savannah, to
the rose garden she tended with constant and loving care.  Macy had been no
more than ten years old, allowed for the first time to visit her father’s
parents without her four raucous brothers to muck up the landscape.  For two
solid months, she’d helped her grandmother tend her prized flowers, listened to
her stories, spent hours wandering the fields beside the creek that ran through
the property her father’s family had owned for over a century.

She didn’t remember telling Dante about that summer, but she
must have.  And he’d evoked that innocent, faraway time with a not-so-innocent
bath in a luscious arboretum.

Damn him.

She shifted in the tub, prepared to fight her Benedict
Arnold muscles and get out, but he placed his hand on her shoulder and gently
eased her back into the water.  He leaned forward so that his words teased the
tendrils that formed at the nape of her neck.

“Relax, Macy.  Let the silkiness of the water awaken you. 
I’d forfeit my entire holdings to be in the water right now, surrounding you,
penetrating you, experiencing every sweet curve and crevice of your body.”

She attempted to resist the power of his suggestion, but
couldn’t.  His desire was too evident, too overwhelming, too delicious to
ignore.  In the past, Dante had always made her feel desirable, but never to
this extreme.  Never to the point where he’d expose his own weakness for
romantic nostalgia in order to prove the depth of his passion.  Never to the
point where he’d ask her to expose her own weaknesses, too many to count.

She couldn’t resist running her hands over her legs beneath
the water, up her thighs to the flat plane of her belly or the round curves of
her breasts.  Despite her arousal, her nipples couldn’t fight the intense heat
of the water to remain erect.  But one brush from her fingertips and they
tightened with intense, but lazy arousal.

She hummed as the sweet sensation eased through her body
like slow molasses poured over hot cakes, sugary and thick with anticipation.

Dante knelt beside the tub.

“How smooth is your skin?”

“Like silk,” she replied, continuing to run her hands over
her body, awakening nerve endings unaccustomed to such delightful decadence.

“What about your muscles?  If I touched you now, would you
jump out of your skin?”

She shook her head.  “I’m not sure my muscles even work anymore. 
You won’t let me drown, will you?” she asked, slipping farther into the water
so that only her head and chin were exposed.

“Never, love.  I wish I could see you, but the ripples in
the water are enough to make me hard.  You’re touching your breasts now, aren’t
you?”

She’d hardly realized how hypnotic the sensations could be,
her thumbs drawing lazy circles around her areola, her fingers toying with the
buoyant flesh of her breasts, creating a warm cocoon of sweet sensation.

She hummed her response.

“I can’t imagine your nipples hardening with all that wet
heat surrounding you.  They must be so pliable, so sensitive to the slightest
touch.”

Willingly, she accepted his suggestion.  He was right.  She
had to pluck hard to bring her nipples to full extension, but the sizzling
sensations that shot through her blood as a result made the nips of pain
entirely worthwhile.  Between her legs, her labia pulsed with need.

She shifted in the water, exposing a breast long enough for
a silky rose petal to adhere to her skin.  Her sharp intake of breath matched
Dante’s.  He was watching from so close—and yet, he didn’t touch.

She should have opened her eyes, but she didn’t dare.  She couldn’t
bear to face his need when she was nearly drowning in the power on her own.  If
she looked, she might pull him into the tub with her.  A girl could only take
so much teasing without some release.

“Do it,” he urged.

She bit her bottom lip.  She’d pleasured herself before—more
times than she cared to admit—but never with an audience.  Never while knowing
that she could have so much more if only she surrendered.  If only she begged.

“No,” she said.

“You want to,” he countered.  “The pulsing is maddening,
isn’t it?  Especially when you know precisely how to sate the hunger.  You
won’t let me take care of you, Macy.  But you can take care of yourself.  Isn’t
that what you’ve been trying to prove your whole life?  How you don’t need
anyone to give you what you need?”

He was goading her.  Challenging her at her core and she saw
no reason to deny the truth, especially when her body so desperately needed
what only she—at this moment—could provide.  She slipped her fingers between the
folds of flesh, found her clit and stroked.

Leaning in close behind her, Dante whispered and cajoled,
made suggestions and suppositions that drove her further into madness.  And when
she gasped for breath as her climax peaked, he kissed her.

With a splash, she wrapped her arms around him.  He may have
promised not to drug her or get her drunk, but he intoxicated her with a long,
languid kiss that made every inch of her body ache for more.  She wanted hot
and heavy—and again, he denied her.  He kissed her softly, toying with her
tongue with only enough energy to bring her back to earth with gentle
persuasion.

When he pulled away, his gaze betrayed the depth of his
need.

“Make love to me,” she said, knowing his game could go no
further.

“No,” he said, standing and stepping back, creating a chasm
of space.

She attempted to stand.  Her muscles wavered, but Dante
braced her with hands on her elbows.  She rewarded his quick reflexes with a
hungry smile.

“You want to make love to me,” she said.

“Of course, but we’re not ready.”

“Because I didn’t come to you?  Drop the game, Dante.  We’re
both here.  We’re both incredibly aroused.  Imagine how hot and slick I am
right now.  Imagine how easy your sex will slip into mine?”

She’d gone too far.  She recognized the moment his control
nearly snapped, but instead of yanking her out of the tub and flinging her on
the soft mossy floor of the arboretum to finish what he’d started, he grabbed
her robe and nearly ripped the fabric in his haste to cover her.

Forcing herself to remain silent, her hopes soared as he lifted
her into his arms, refusing eye contact until he’d pounded up the stairs and
kicked open the door of the master suite.

Finally!  Once they did this, they’d expend the last of
their mutual attraction and end this game of sexual teasing.  He laid her on
the bed, leaving her to open the robe as he circled around to the footboard,
his eyes blazing, his nostrils flaring with unchecked lust.

Then, he was gone.  She blinked, unsure that she’d actually
seen him turn and leave.  She struggled off the bed, her muscles still weak, and
staggered toward the door.

Just in time to hear the click of the lock.

She sagged against the carved wood frame, unwilling to shout
for him to let her out when she knew he’d never comply.  She pounded on the
wood once, an impotent but necessary gesture.  Exhausted and angry, but mostly
swimming in a wash of desires she needed to exercise out of her system, she
rolled onto her back.  The room glowed with candles, flickering seductive
fingers of light over the golden bed sheets and intricately woven satin duvet.

He’d planned to seduce her here, just as she’d anticipated. 
She’d asked him—nearly begged him.  Wasn’t that what he wanted?

Wasn’t she?

She staggered back to the bed, tossed aside the robe and climbed
between the covers naked.  Maybe he’d come to her later tonight, when he’d
found some control for the wild emotions she’d caught in his eyes.

Or maybe not.  Either way, by tomorrow, she’d end his game,
if it was the last thing she did.

“He’s here.”

Dante snapped his attention away from the monitors to the
speaker on his desk.  “Show him up.”

After flipping the switch so that the image of Macy
searching the billiard room instantly disappeared, he slid his chair back,
retrieved his jacket from the brass peg on the wall and slipped his arms into
the silk-lined garment.