Dare Me

“Lift your hands in the air,” he demanded.

I didn’t question. I arched my back and crossed my arms behind my head, my elbows pointed at the ceiling. I was a million times more naked in that position, tits lifted up and pushed out for Callum’s eyes to feast on. It felt vulnerable, erotic. I was bared naked for him, my breathing short and ragged, bouncing my breasts in a way that demanded his unyielding attention, no matter how hard he tried to fight it. Callum was silent but I knew he was swallowing hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing as my bare chest rose and fell with each hard breath. I could taste the thick air between us as he came forward to me, his eyes filled with intent. The closer he came, the tighter his body stiffened. I wet my lips, watching his shirt stretch taut over his broadening chest.

And then he touched me.

I let out a faint moan as his warm hands brushed my skin to cup the bottoms of my breasts, his fingers spreading wide to form over their size. I soaked in the heavy sound of his arousal as he let himself squeeze, soft at first but then harder and harder till he let out a throaty groan. “Fuck,” Callum hissed. He bounced the weight of my breasts in his hands. His tongue lolled as he watched my nipples pebble for him. They ached to feel his lips wrap around them and he knew it so he stared for a predatory second. Arms still over my head, my fingers dug into my hair.

Take it. Please. Take what you want. I was ready to tell him but he did it without me. I gasped as he jerked my waist, arching my back like a bow. My hair spilled like a waterfall as he presented my tits for his mouth. They begged for him, as close as they could possibly be without touching his lips. Please, please, pretty please. The hot air he breathed onto my peaks blasted me with sensation that shot straight to my core. My skin spread with unbearable heat as I waited for the relief of his mouth, his lips, his tongue. I could see it, practically feel it ready and watering, just waiting to claim me. I didn’t need him to be gentle – I just needed him to take my body and treat himself to whatever he wanted.

However he wanted.

But with a curled lip, he tore away.

Fuck! My eyes fell shut. I shattered to silent pieces as his hands promptly went elsewhere. They traveled with a purpose to my ribcage, running down my side and stopping at the third bone down from my breast. Yes. I opened my eyes and the breath hitched in my throat as his right thumb ran over the little tattoo usually covered by my arm. I watched his wolfish gaze move over the black ink – the promise I had made to him a year before I left.

We were twenty years old and so fiercely in love.

So we’d decided to get tattoos of each other’s names on our bodies. Mine on his, his on mine, both in the same spot. They warned me how it would hurt but I liked that it was the rib right next to my heart, so they started. And ten seconds into the needle on bone, I passed right out. Embarrassingly enough, the pain was too excruciating for me to get past the letter “C.” So Callum left his at just “L,” but not without teasing me. When I said I’d have it finished someday, he laughed and said he didn’t believe me. So I made the promise that on my next birthday, I’d have the tattoo completed. “Yeah? No matter how much it hurts?”

“No matter what happens. Even if I lose consciousness.”

He laughed. “That’s crazy. But I dare you to do it.”

“I know. And I accept.” It was appropriate. My love for him was crazy and his love for me was the same. So I swore I would do it and he followed suit.

I’d already disappeared from New York by the time I turned twenty-one but at a parlor near Richmond, despite the fact that Callum had no clue where I was, I’d gotten the remaining five letters inked. They hurt like hell so I felt a sense of pride as his fingers traced them now. C-A-L-L-U-M. Every letter burned into me forever, just like the scar on my hip. The only difference was that this scar had been a choice. The balance represented us well. Neither Callum nor I chose each other. We were thrust into one another’s lives. But we loved each other so hand in hand, we chose to fight every hurtle flung our way. We’d been apart for awhile by the time I had my tattoo finished but I’d sat through it convinced that it was part of my fight to stay close to him – to prove to myself that when it was safe, I’d return to him.

“You really did it.”

“I promised I would,” I murmured as he touched the letters. I felt so damned satisfied about the disbelief in his eyes that I forgot about his end of the promise. Suddenly, I backed away. Callum gave a quizzical look but I stared into him. “Let me see yours.”

Standing straight, his lips became a hard line.

“Take your shirt off, Callum.” I shook my head at him because I already knew. “Let me see,” I demanded, the words barely escaping my tight throat. “At least let me fucking see,” I pleaded angrily, the tears coming back.

He finally obliged. And naked before him, I did my best not to sob. But as he shrugged off his jacket and undid his shirt, I saw the body he’d built while I was gone. I saw his carved chest and the lines of his abs a hundred times deeper than the last time I’d seen them. He looked so distinctly different and so strikingly beautiful it hurt. Ink coiled and lashed over his smooth skin, curling around his thick biceps and forearms. It was completely unfamiliar. Once upon a time, I’d been the only tattoo on his body.

“Lift your arm, Callum.” My voice trembled hard. I hated how it sounded, hated that it would only sound worse once I confirmed it. The tears spilled when I did.

While I’d turned the “C” on my rib to his full name, he’d had my “L” covered up completely. Turned it into a set of Roman numerals to effectively erase me. Eradicate any signs of me from his body. I proudly had the scar on my hip, the tattoo on my rib. Callum had nothing and he had nothing for me as I cried in front of him. For once, he was able to stand there, firmly unaffected by my despair. The back of my wrist tried shutting up the pathetic sounds coming out of my mouth. But it failed. It wasn’t just the ink now, it was everything – every hurt and ache and fruitless fight of the past six years hurling at me like rocks. The pain of the needle all those years ago was nothing compared to what I felt now.

“Lake,” Callum finally started but I didn’t want to hear it.

“I need to go to sleep,” I exhaled fast.

I was sinking into that quicksand again, returning to that dark place where it was true – where I was worthless. A burden and a curse who loved people more than they ever loved me. As I followed Callum to my room, I tried to tell myself to sleep it off. That I was fine and I somehow had the strength in my fractured heart to do this – to stay not just in New York but in the home of the man who’d gladly forgotten me when I only lived because of his memory.

Chapter Seven

Callum

Heads up Theo’s looking for her.

Logan’s 7AM text made for a sufficiently rude awakening. I’d fallen asleep just a half hour before, having tossed and turned all night like a restless grab bag of guilt, fury and irritation. I hated seeing her cry. I hated that I was the reason for her tears. I loathed myself for being an unfeeling prick yet I indulged myself in jerking off to the memory of how she stripped down naked for me. From head to toe, Lake was the most beautiful thing I’d ever laid eyes on and I couldn’t stop wondering who’d been lucky enough to touch her in the years she was gone. I wondered if he had treated her right and I knew that whatever job he’d done with pleasing her, I could’ve done it a thousand times better. It took hours for my blood to stop rushing, for my cock and my mind to come down enough to get some rest.

But then Logan’s text came and I was wide-awake and seething. I jumped out of bed, suddenly compelled to make sure Lake was still safely tucked in her bed in my guest room. My heart jumped damned near out of my chest when I opened the door to see her bed empty. But then I heard the water running downstairs in the kitchen.

I found Lake there in the T-shirt I’d given her to sleep in. I watched from the top of the stairs as she stood before my glass-front fridge, staring at the contents that I had neatly lined up like inanimate soldiers. She kept grabbing the handle of the door only to let it go, over and over without opening the fridge though I knew she was desperate to eat. She used to bounce on her toes and sigh when she was hungry. Apparently, she still did.