Triple Dare

He took a step back and found himself pinned between Ivy’s soft, warm curves and the cold, hard SUV. Not much of a dilemma there except for the whole safe-distance thing. “I thought that was a last resort.”

“What’s more last-resort than her closing in on us like a heat-seeking missile? It’s why you brought me here, isn’t it? What we practiced for.” She molded herself to him and he was pretty sure she could feel his erection against her thigh. “One little kiss and she’ll get the message.”

“And what message is that, exactly?”

With surprising force, she grabbed his shoulders and spun him around so she was the one trapped against the car. She rose up on tiptoe so when she spoke her lips moved against his.

“This one.”

* * *

THEIR FIRST KISS was a brushfire compared to this. This was a five-alarm inferno.

Last time Ivy had gone in with the intent to tease, to tantalize. This time she was more like a one-woman wrecking crew, determined to wipe thoughts of Sasha or any other woman from Cade’s mind.

Only he wasn’t biting. Literally or figuratively.

She slid her lips along his strong jaw, smiling as she tasted him. Salt and soap and all sorts of yummy maleness. Just like she’d imagined since she hit puberty.

“This isn’t supposed to be a solo performance,” she whispered against his neck. The sweet scrape of his five-o’-clock shadow made her lips tingle. “Do something. Put your hand on my ass. Your tongue down my throat. Anything.”

He mumbled something that sounded like “fuck safe distance,” wedged a leg between hers and cupped her ass, dragging her to him. She sighed into the hollow at the base of his neck and reached around to pull his shirt from the waistband of his pants.

“That’s more like it.” She slipped her hands under his shirt and up his back, still slick with sweat from the ball game, scraping gently with her nails as she went. He rewarded her with a shudder and her insides did a little happy dance. He might want to deny it, but he was as affected by this as she was. The evidence was undeniable, pressing against her core.

“Christ, Ivy.” He moaned, further proving her point.

Over his shoulder she saw Sasha. Her steps had slowed and her mouth gaped as she stared at them.

“Perfect. She’s looking at us like she’s seen the Ghost of Christmas Past. Kiss me and she’ll probably keel over.”

“Then it’s a good thing there’s plenty of cops and firefighters around,” Cade murmured just before his mouth claimed hers. His hands left her bottom and traveled up to frame her face. In one swift but gentle move, he tugged off her baseball cap and freed her hair from the ponytail, letting it cascade over his fingers.

A moan stuck in Ivy’s throat as his lips teased and pressed harder. She opened to him, letting his tongue play with hers in a dance as old as time but new to her. Sure, she’d kissed guys before. Not many, but a few. And not like this. Hot. Wet. Urgent.

She melted into him, her legs unable to support her weight. His big hand trailed down her neck, his fingers toying with the top button of the borrowed baseball jersey, teasing the sensitive skin between her breasts and making her shiver.

He broke off the kiss and licked a moist path to her ear, his teeth tugging at the lobe. “Sasha still watching?”

Sasha who?

“Uh-huh.” The two syllables were all Ivy could manage.

“She look convinced?” His breath stirred the hair behind her ear, and he raised a hand to twine a strand around his finger.

It took a second for Ivy to come out of her lust-induced haze so she could focus on the parking lot beyond Cade’s shoulder. Sasha was at a dead stop a few feet away, hands on her model-thin hips, eyes flashing. She met Ivy’s gaze, tossed her perfectly coiffed, long, blond hair in a gesture that screamed “I have no clue why he’s with you when he could have all of this” and stomped off.

“She looks pissed. Or looked. She’s gone now.”

“Good.” He let his hand drop and reached around her to open the car door. “Your chariot awaits.”

“Valentino’s?” she asked, still shaking a bit from the aftereffects of their kiss as she climbed in. “I’m dying for a piece of meat-lovers pie. Or three.”

She cringed, instantly regretting mentioning her appetite—another knee-jerk reaction from her way overweight days, when talk of food had been all but verboten—but Cade didn’t seem to notice. He leaned on the open door. “Sasha’s bound to be there. Sure you’re up for that?”

After that kiss, she wasn’t sure of anything, especially her ability to be within five feet of Cade without mauling him like a sex-starved grizzly. But at least at Valentino’s they’d be surrounded by a crowd. And dinner would put off the awkwardness when he dropped her off at the end of the night.

“I’m game as long as you are.”

“Great.” He bent to pick up her baseball cap, brushed it off and handed it to her. “I’m starving.”

Two hours, one beer and more pieces of pizza than she wanted to admit later, Ivy yawned, unable to delay the inevitable any longer. She tapped Cade, who was sitting next to her, on the shoulder. “Can we leave soon? I’ve got to be at the nursery at the butt crack of dawn, and it’s way past my bedtime.”

Plus, she’d had about as much of Sasha and her high-pitched, fake laugh as she could take. Cade’s ex had kept her distance, but that annoying laugh traveled across the room like a bullet to the brain.

And then there were the well-meaning but double-edged compliments from classmates she hadn’t seen since graduation.

“Oh, my God, Ivy, is that you?”

“What happened to you?”

“You’re so much thinner.”

And her personal favorite: “Are you sick?” Like that was the only conceivable way Jabba the Mutt could drop a few pounds.

Cade pulled out his wallet. “No problem. I’m ready to head out, too.”

He threw a handful of bills on the table and stood. “This ought to cover my share.”

Trey snatched it up. “If it doesn’t, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

“Thanks for everything,” Cade said to Ivy once they’d gotten into his SUV. “I owe you.”

“We’re even, remember?” She ran a finger along the brim of the ball cap, now laying in her lap. “The dare.”

“Right. The dare.” He turned onto the narrow road that circled Leffert’s Pond and led to Holly and Nick’s place. “Anyway, you were great tonight.”

Ivy stared silently out the window, her heart knocking against her ribs. He had no idea how great tonight could be, if only she could work up the nerve. After a few minutes, she turned to Cade, his profile handsome even in the eerie half light of the car’s dashboard. She wished she had her Nikon so she could capture him. “So, that kiss...”

“Yeah, that was something.” He shot her a quick, embarrassed smile and her heart skittered even faster. “I bet I won’t be hearing from Sasha again after that performance.”

Screech. Just like that, her heart skidded to a stop, her hopes dashed.

Performance? Who did he think was performing? Her? Him? Both of them?

She scrunched up the baseball cap in her hands. “That’s not the word I’d use to describe it.”

“Why not?”