The Marriage Dare

He told me to wait here, and I have. There are two guards here with me, silently watching. One is the man who was guarding the poker room—I heard Daniel call him Devon. And I don’t know the other one. Both of them are easily twice my size, and I’d be stupid to try to get out of here with them in the way.

Regardless, Daniel made a point of telling me that. “Stay here, and don’t leave,” he said. “If you don’t, there will be a scene, and I know how much you don’t like to make a scene.”

The words slice through me, one more dig at our shared history and things that I can’t take back even though I wish that I could. But I’m not going to run. He knows it, and I know it. After all, I don’t have anywhere to go.

But he has to be joking, right? An elaborate prank as part of his plan to take revenge. Because my mind can’t wrap itself around the fact that he would actually want to marry me. It just seems like too much, to tie yourself forever to someone you loathe.

But it doesn’t have to be forever, my mind whispers. And I think that’s the part that scares me. I don’t know what his plans are, only that he has some. And he could take me, humiliate me, and divorce me, as with not much more than a thought. But if that happens, I’ll deal with it too.

Marry Daniel Argent. I’m still tipsy from the drinks, and I let myself lean back on the couch and surrender to the images that my mind is creating. I see myself in a white dress, walking toward him down an aisle and my stomach fluttering with nerves. But then he’s kissing me, and God I want to kiss that mouth. I want to feel him kiss me.

My mind spins it forward until we’re more than kissing. Until we’re tangled up in each other, breathless and panting and pleasured. Everything that I said I shouldn’t want during that poker game, just two strangers seeking an experience with the other. Everything that I still crave. Because the way that he looks at me makes me want him, even though I know he’s using it against me. I’m drunk enough and tired enough that I don’t care. Let him use me. Take me. Just make me feel something other than this.

The door opens and Daniel strides in. I’m yanked out of my erotic fantasy about him, and faced with the reality. That he’s here and just as fucking hot as everything that I imagined. I feel the blush rise to my cheeks, and he notices. Apparently he notices everything.

“You look flustered.”

“I’m not,” I say quickly.

He just chuckles and nods to his security. They leave silently, almost like they were never there at all. “You’re a terrible liar.”

“Why do you think I’m lying?”

He smiles, slow and sexy. “Because your body is telling a different story. About being flustered.”

“Fine,” I say. “I am. And it’s because of you. Why shouldn’t I be flustered in a situation where I’m going to marry a man who hates me.”

“I never said I hated you.”

Anger floods me. “You did.”

“Past tense. I used to hate you.”

Frustration and confusion are swirling in my brain, and I’m not quite sober enough for this. “But you said that you want to destroy me.”

He smiles again, this time showing that dangerous, sharp side. “I want that too. I can want more than one thing at a time. And right now, I like being the one that makes you flustered, because you’re sexy when you blush.”

Of course, that just makes me blush more. And then he shrugs off his suit jacket, which honestly doesn’t help matters. Daniel is built. The last time I saw him he was skinny, though old, bitchy me would have called him scrawny. The crisp white dress shirt he’s wearing has been tailored just for him. Not an inch of extra fabric anywhere, showing off a trim waist and a powerful chest. It makes me wonder what he looks like working out, and the thought of him doing shirtless chin-ups makes me feel faint.

I follow the line of his arms down to his hands. Gorgeous, deft hands that I couldn’t keep my eyes off of during the game. God, what I imagine those hands could do to me. I’m aching just thinking about it, and he fucking knows it too.

He crosses the distance between us, standing over me, and his eyes are burning with fire and lust. I’m not the only one imagining what it would be like for us to be together. There’s a saying about hate and passion being two sides of the same coin, and I definitely feel that right now. I hate this man. Hate what he’s doing to me. And I want to strip him naked and lick every inch of his body.