Dare (4 page)

W
hen it was over
, when they’d both come down from the crazy high, Will took a minute to fall back into himself. Forehead resting on Melanie’s shoulder blade, breaths coming fast and shallow, he felt the last of the slow tremors leave her body.

After kissing her one last time, a quick press of lips to her bare back, he helped her up, grabbed for the throw on the back of the couch—the one she’d made him for Christmas because she complained she was always cold at his place—and went to take care of the condom.

He hadn’t once made eye contact with Judd after Melanie had performed her little striptease. Hadn’t been focused on anything but making her feel good. And Will didn’t exactly know what to do next.

They’d talked about the rules for during, and way after—like “at the next apartment get-together” or “the next time they went out for a beer” kind of way after—but they’d neglected to negotiate the immediate after.

In the half bath, Will cleaned up, zipped up, and moved to go back into the living room.

He stopped at the threshold when he heard a low voice murmuring and Melanie’s soft, drowsy laughter.

Something in his gut clenched.

Will wasn’t the love ’em and leave ’em type, and he’d known the moment Melanie agreed to become his friend with benefits that he wouldn’t be satisfied with that arrangement for long.

If he were honest with himself, truly honest, for the last six months of his relationship with Amber, he’d been racked with guilt over the infatuation with his new neighbor. Their relationship had been strained for months before that, but when fresh-faced, recent college grad Melanie Robles had moved across the breezeway, that had been it for Will.

And then she’d brought them cookies. A friendly farm girl from southeastern Arizona, Melanie was warm and open. Funny and thoughtful.

When Amber had told him she would not marry him, had told him he could keep the furniture and she was moving out, it had been a blessing. A month or so later, Melanie had been his. Temporarily. Though he’d do anything to make it permanent.

So to see another man talking to Melanie, taking care of Melanie—

Judd walked to the kitchen, Melanie moved to sit up on the couch, and Will finally restarted his brain.

“Everything okay here, honey?”

She laughed again, a little more with it now, and killed him a little when she said, “Men. Judd just asked me the exact same thing.”

Something like a tsunami of blood rushed through his ears. No. She was his.
His
sweet Mel. She was his to care for. His to love.

“Go on over there, caveman. You promised it wouldn’t be like this.”

Judd shoved two ice-cold bottles of water at his bare chest and rolled his eyes. But not before asking, real low, “We good?”

Will looked to Melanie where she still sat, quietly beaming on the couch, wrapped up in that ugly-ass blanket she’d made with random spools of yarn she had in her craft closet.

“Never better.”

And it was true. He’d never been better—he’d just choose to forget those heart-stopping, gut-clenching moments of pure panic when he feared they’d made the wrong decision. That indulging in their fantasy had ruined everything that was just beginning between him and Melanie.

Yep. Never better. Even when Judd walked over to Mel, bent to kiss her cheek and thank her for inviting him in.

The door snicked closed and Melanie sighed and leaned back against the buttery-soft leather. He’d take her there some morning, on the couch with the warm desert sunrise turning her entire body golden. Will would lay her back against the leather, spread her wide, and worship her with his whole body.

For now, his goddess looked a little sleepy with the blanket dipping low over her collarbone. She’d put her hair up in a ponytail while he was in the bathroom, and her skin was still a little splotchy.

“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

She snorted. “Likely story.”

“No. It’s absolutely true.”

“I’ll concede that I’m perhaps the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen naked on your couch.” She pulled a face, and he knew she was regretting making the comparison, however vague, to Amber and the women who’d been there before. So she changed the subject. “Wanna order something?”

Come to think of it, he was starving. He tossed her a water bottle and plopped down next to her on the couch. She cracked the lid and downed it in about three gulps. That simple act shouldn’t be so erotic when they’d both just blown the door open wide on erotic acts. He glimpsed a flash of breast when she put the empty on the floor, wondered if she was already bruising where he’d bit at her skin, then she bounced over to his side and snuggled in.

“My hands are cold.” Draping one side of the blanket over him so her bare breast pressed into his side when she wrapped an arm around him, she damn near made him jump out of his skin when she placed her ice-hand on his lower back. “Ahhhh,” she said exaggeratedly. “Much better.”

“Damn, Melanie.”

But she just smiled against his shoulder and went to work tracing complicated designs on the small of his back. That warmed him up faster than it should have.

“I’m hungry.”

“Ditto. You wore me out, Mel. What sounds good?”

“Not sure. You pick.”

Hmm, he was actually considering how to code their pizza for this monumental event. He doubted they’d ever repeat it. But in case she wanted to—in case
they
wanted to—“What toppings say,
congratulations, you’ve just knocked off the number one item on your sexual bucket list
?”

“Yeah. About that.”

“About what?”

Mel jumped up from the couch, suddenly energetic, and moved over to the big leather chair where Judd had sat earlier.

“This.”

She dangled a roll of wide, shiny black electrical tape from her index finger.

Wait.
Bondage tape.

“I thought you were hungry.”

She shrugged and unraveled a length of it, stretching it, testing it. Looking like she was getting all kinds of ideas.

“Oh no. We’ve had enough of that tonight. I think it’s a cheese pizza and
Star Wars
night after all.”

“Oh you do, do you?”

“Yep.” He began to edge around the coffee table, but she started backing up to the hallway.

“Plain cheese? Booooring,” she teased.

He caught her around the waist. “A classic,” he insisted, and bent to capture her mouth with his.

“Mmmmm.”

Her moan was a subtle vibration on his mouth. “Utterly delicious.”

“I don’t know.” She nibbled at his lower lip, and he tried to remind himself he wasn’t a total jackass and shouldn’t guide her mouth down to his cock. They hadn’t said anything about green peppers.

“I think after the extraordinary night you arranged for us,” she continued, completely oblivious to his mental struggle, “I think I owe you a pizza. My treat.”

She was up to something, but he played along. But played it his way, bringing her arms up over her head, gripping her wrists in his hands and pressing her into the wall. “Your treat, huh?”

“Yeah. I think you’d really enjoy some combination pizza at about, oh, three in the morning.” She shook the roll of bondage tape meaningfully. Or as meaningfully as she could with her hands trapped.

He’d have to buy Judd a lifetime supply of beer. The man was a fucking saint for leaving behind a little gift.

“Perfect. Hands behind your head. I want to see you on your knees.”

She danced out from between the wall and held the tape aloft. “Oh no. I think you misunderstand. Combination pizza. My. Treat.”

“Yep. You. You are my treat.”

She shook her head slowly from side to side, pointed to him and then to her heart. The gesture was both sweet and suggestive.

Realization washed over him. Oh no. Oh no. They’d done enough sexplorations that evening, hadn’t they?

She was right, though. He was hers. Completely. And now was a perfect time to remind her of what he’d known all along.

But that didn’t mean he couldn’t play with her a little bit first. “You know, Judd left that tape for me. We’re in my apartment—”

“He left it for
us
.”

“Maaaaaybe.” He affected a menacing leer. “But I’m bigger and stronger…”

“You think you can take me, Will?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“Then come on.” She turned to walk to his bedroom. Her heart-shaped ass swinging with each exaggerated step she took. Melanie turned and looked over her shoulder. Wiggled the bondage tape for good measure. “Come on,” she whispered. “I dare you.”

T
he second is just
as sweet as the first. (Well,
Dare
might be a little spicier…)

If you read
Blaze
and came back for more Naughty Neighbors, thank you from the bottom of my heart. And if you didn’t, I hope you’ll enjoy it.

Please take a moment to leave a review, positive or negative. Reviews on the merchant site, and on websites like
Goodreads
, help other readers find books.

O
livia Aycock writes
romance with an erotic edge. Her characters might be urban sophisticates or have sweet southern style. But no matter the setting, you can always expect a satisfying ending.

Learn more about the Naughty Neighbors Series at Olivia’s
website
and sign up for her
newsletter
for sneak peeks and exclusive content.

• @AycockBooks
  

I
t was
one of those late-summer nights when even wishing for oblivion took too much effort. The air pressed in so hot and wet that thinking was too taxing. Breathing, next to impossible.

If death were to come, it wouldn’t be by her own hand.

The air-conditioning unit had gone out approximately seven hours and forty-three minutes ago. And now it was Friday night and all the tricks she knew to play on the fussy old thing had failed, and getting someone out on the weekend had failed too. It was August. During the third consecutive week of one-hundred-degree temps. The last AC repair dispatch operator had suggested she’d have more luck flying in an entire rocket ship full of glacier ice from the moon.

Her apartment was on the second floor of the graceful old duplex. That meant she was closer to the moon, right? So why was her place so freaking hot?

See, impossible to think.

Laurie let her eyes drift closed and meditated on frosty images. A Swiss chalet. A mountain stream in winter. Being buried under a glacier of moon ice.

She sucked in a particularly hot breath and almost choked. A puny misting from the water bottle she’d filled earlier served to cool her for only the moment her ceiling fan evaporated it on her skin. It had been seven hours and forty-five minutes since she’d felt like anything but a disgusting mess.

Too bad she didn’t have hot Friday night plans. Of course, hot wasn’t a word she wanted in her vocabulary right about now.

Maybe she should just suck it up and book a hotel room.

She’d spent a good hour looking at prices online earlier in the afternoon, about three o’clock when temperatures hovered around 102 and she’d been almost willing to put a dent in the nest egg she’d been working so hard to build back up after buying out her brother’s share in the duplex.

But knowing that, come Monday morning, Laurie would have to bite the bullet and replace the piece of crap air-conditioning unit, she couldn’t justify two hundred dollars for a night at the Omni. And even eighty bucks at the skeevy place by Love Field was too much to spend. No, she’d just lie here with her trusty ceiling fan, a spray bottle of water, and meditate on the luxury of cool.

Lord help her if the electricity went out, too.

It was quiet without the ancient AC unit running nonstop, though through her open window she could hear the soft whir of the other unit. It had been replaced last summer. She now regretted the frugal and prudent decision to not replace them both at the same time. Laurie gave a brief thought to using the master key and hanging out in her downstairs tenant’s still cheerfully air-conditioned apartment. She spent a somewhat longer time thinking about the ice maker her brother had installed in the kitchen in the last renovation. And that king-sized bed she’d seen the movers lug in took up an extra-large space in her fantasy. Just think of all those miles and miles of cool cotton to roll on.

Maybe she could—

No. Grant Everton didn’t strike her as the accommodating type. In fact, in the weeks since he’d moved in, they’d exchanged possibly fourteen sentences in passing. Most of them at their siblings’ wedding last month. Most of them
hey, how are you? Good. Good, I’m good, too. Good.

Did it count as conversation if they just said the same words to each other over and over again?

And even if they’d been on the best terms, she wouldn’t dream of violating his privacy—and the rental agreement—by going into his apartment without cause.

Although maybe she
should
check his AC filter just in case.

Curses, he wasn’t even home to enjoy the perfection of chilled air. Probably wouldn’t be home tonight at all. He seemed to be a fan of working late. And by working late, he was probably working some graceful, statuesque blonde over while the steady whir of her penthouse apartment air conditioning brought chill bumps to their sweat-slickened bodies.

She’d feel the heat of his lips feasting on the soft underside of a breast, a kiss of wet heat followed by a lick of—

Okay, no. Nope. Not going to happen. Laurie was most certainly not going to fantasize about that. Was definitely not going to let her hand wander down a body slicked by the non-sexy kind of sweat and wallow in the center of her heat.

If it was too hot to breathe, it was too hot for
that
.

And certainly not to fantasies of her new neighbor! A sort-of-kind-of-not-really-but-almost relative. When her brother married his half-sister, what did that make them?

People who barely spoke to each other
. That’s what it made them.

Laurie peeled herself off her bed and moseyed into the bathroom. Mr. Rochester had claimed a coolish spot draped over the lip of the old cast iron tub. He peered balefully at her through his one seeing eye.

“Well, you’re just going to have to move or get wet,” she said to the big grey beast, leaning over to turn the lever entirely to the right and push in the stopper. No sense in messing with a shower again. The three quickies she’d taken already today clearly hadn’t done much to cool her. She drew a bath and plunged herself in before it had filled halfway.

The water was cool…ish. Texas ground water was never truly cool after a summer of skyrocketing temperatures, but if she moved her legs every so often, a pocket of cool water would fill the space. A kind of flip-side-of-the-pillow effect. Probably placebo. But it worked. Even if it hurt her to think how much water she was wasting.

But dying of heatstroke would kind of be a waste, too.

Tipping her head back, she imaged ice baths. Or just ice cubes. Melting, dripping, cooling and pooling on her hot skin. Starting at her temple, easing down her cheek, anointing her lips with a kiss of frost before a hot mouth licked and sucked at her full lower lip.

A thumb would rub the moisture away, beckoning her to open her lips, and a sliver of ice would replace its intrusion. A quick swallow and then a duel of tongues, numb to everything but pleasure. Such pleasure there would be in an ice cube held aloft by a strong hand, a thumb and forefinger guiding its path down, down, down—

Laurie came up sputtering. Cursing. Terrorizing poor old Rochester with a tsunami of bathwater. Okay, this was getting completely out of control if she was taking a trip back to fantasyland while in the tub.

Clearly she wouldn’t be satisfied until she was, um, satisfied.

She was already perspiring after a naked walk from the bathroom back to her bed, and way too keyed up over her bathtime imaginings, so she might as well do something about it.

Something that required next to no effort.

She opened her nightstand drawer. “Ah yes, hello, purple one.”

Once upon a time she had laughed at the vibrator, part of a sample basket vendors at a bridal show had been given to cross-promote. Because what her burgeoning upscale events planning company really needed was a referral from a sex-toy company. Uh huh.

But she wasn’t laughing at the purple wonder now. No, she wasn’t laughing at all. Without much direction from her, it found just the right spot to make the sauna of her bedroom disappear, to make visions of sparkling light appear at the outermost corner of her mind.

“Mmmm, yes.” She dipped it down to tease her opening, gathering up her slick arousal, and brought the tip back up over and around her clit. “Yes, so good.”

She pressed a button and the pattern switched from a low, persistent buzz to an intermittent thump.

When she closed her eyes, she didn’t see stars, but she did see Grant. His face above hers. Imagined his fingers lazily sweeping over her breasts, circling around and around her taut nipples, but never quite giving them the attention they deserved. She’d cry foul, and he’d smirk in some truly naughty way, but then his head would work miracles down along her body. Sucking at her stomach, biting at her thighs. And licking, long, strong swipes of his tongue. There, right where the skin was silky and smooth. He’d lick and probe and make her cry out his name.

Laurie swiped a thumb over the controls, dialing it up higher and higher, placing the tip at the very top of her clit. Ooh, right there, where the thumping vibrations pressed and retreated, the light was growing closer and closer. Shimmering and undulating, building to a beautiful—