Dare Me (Take Me 2)

The first two initiatives he felt confident he could manage.

The third one, however…

That was going to be a true test of his willpower.

No… It’d be the ultimate test of his willpower.

Could he stay the course when temptation was sleeping right next door to him?

7

Despite the wine she’d consumed previously,

Nikki was stone-cold sober during the last hour of the flight, and as the plane descended into JFK.

She seriously wished she wasn’t.

Her life had, once again, become a nightmare of epic proportions.

How she’d kept herself from hyperventilating or tapping her toe through the floorboards as anxiety besieged her was beyond Nikki’s own comprehension. Just seeing her computer on Damen’s lap in her peripheral vision, as she stared straight ahead, had the panic and fury swelling so fiercely inside her, it was a wonder she didn’t choke on her emotions.

She wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt and concede that, yes, he fully did seem to grasp how invasive, how nerve-wracking this was for her.

At the moment, however, she just wanted to ram her knee between his legs.

Too bad they were both sitting and the seatbelt sign was on.

Too bad his intimate, whisky-laced voice nearly soothed her frayed and jagged edges as he leaned close and murmured, “This’ll be over soon, I promise. Try to relax.”

“Fuck you.”

He chuckled. “Your preferred response to everything about me.”

She glowered inwardly at how unwittingly close to the bullseye he’d come.

How could she possibly want to cause irreparable damage to the groin of the man she was so ridiculously attracted to?

What the hell would Kate say about this, if Nikki were to confide in her that, on the one hand, Damen Castillo was hot enough to light her up and make her burn to get naked with him? While on the other hand… He was turning her life upside down and making her want to cause him bodily harm?

Even Nikki wasn’t sure she wanted to psychoanalyze herself in this particular realm.

This was much too volatile a situation.

She was fighting for possession of all the memorabilia of her marriage.

At the same time, she was fighting the chemistry that seared her to the core, sizzled through her veins, made her hot and bothered. All because of Damen Castillo.

Just breathing in the man’s darkly exotic scent did things to her. So that she had to cross her legs and squeeze her thighs together in hopes of quelling the dull ache deep within her.

Maybe she was responding this way because she hadn’t had sex in years. Not since Conner. Not since that night she’d told him she was pregnant and they’d celebrated with multiple orgasms and whispered plans for their future.

She closed her eyes as she felt another prickle of pain behind them.

Here she was, lost in memories she’d learned how to not obsess over on a daily basis…while she was also obsessing over a different man. The one sitting next to her.

It wasn’t fair or right…take your pick.

She tried to convince herself this vacillation, this push and pull, meant she was nowhere near ready to move on from Conner.