Dare (10 page)

I sighed, my shoulders slumping, and threw the truck into park, turning the key in the ignition to shut the engine off. The silence that ensued seemed even louder than my roaring engine.

“Honest like you were honest with me about your intentions for the farm?” I asked, feeling inexplicably exhausted. I’d driven a long way, sure, and still had that many more miles to go before I would be at home and able to relax, but there was something more than that. I just felt so mentally tired of running away from Sebastian, of thinking about him and trying to keep myself from thinking about him, from avoiding even the idea of his existence.

And despite my very best efforts, he was standing right outside my truck window on a loading dock in a part of Los Angeles I’d never been in and couldn’t imagine Sebastian ever venturing into either. It was bizarre, and yet it seemed like it was meant to be at the same time.

“I didn’t mean to have—Rachel, can you just come out here?” Sebastian crossed his arms in front of him, his fingers tapping on the surface of his suit jacket, impatient with my stubbornness.

“Maybe it’s a good idea if we kept a door between us,” I said.

“Don’t be childish. What are you afraid of?”

To prove to him that I was no child—I was twenty-two years old, damn it—I flung open the door so suddenly and so hard that it nearly clipped him as he jumped away. I held my chin up as I climbed down from the truck, angry and nervous and more than aware that I was acting like a brat even as I attempted to prove I wasn’t one. I always thought I had a pretty good grasp on what I wanted in life—or at least the ability to adapt to my current life—until I crossed paths with Sebastian Clementine. His presence, the very thought of him, cast everything into doubt.

I glowered up at him and was so overcome with emotion that I took several quick strides to get right up in his face…and kissed him.

He made what was perhaps a sound of surprise, his mouth opening, and I plunged my tongue between his lips. He tasted like he had before, which was puzzling. Did everyone have a unique taste? If there was some weird police lineup in which I had to be blindfolded and kiss a bunch of guys, though, I was pretty sure that I’d be able to pick Sebastian’s mouth out of the rest of them. Coupled with his taste was the shape of his lips pressed against mine, the familiar way his tongue made friendly war with mine, both of us eager to glean the other’s tastes.

I gasped and pulled away from him. What in the hell was I doing? What the shit was that?

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I said, panting as I wiped my wet lips off on the back of my hand. “That is exactly what I’m afraid of.”

“It’s ludicrous to be afraid of a kiss,” Sebastian argued, managing somehow to look pleased and perturbed all at once.

“I didn’t want to kiss you,” I said, feeling wretched and confused and turned on. Why couldn’t I get my head on straight? What was wrong with me? “I wanted to yell at you.”

“Yell at me? For what?”

“For blocking my truck in with your stupid car!” I shouted, pointing behind me. “For showing up here, unannounced. How did you even know I was here? Are you stalking me? For bothering me day and night when it should’ve been apparent that we were through. For…for not being through at all. For wanting to kiss you again, even now, after I’ve yelled at you.”

It was Sebastian who kissed me this time, languid and deep, almost in an attempt to get me to slow down.

“You’re overthinking things,” he said, as soon as our mouths parted from each other.

“Did you or did you not have sex with me to get me to help you convince Dad to sell the farm to you?” I demanded.

“I didn’t.”

“Bullshit.”

“Rachel, we had sex in that barn because we were attracted to each other. We are still attracted to each other, unless I’m mistaken.”

He wasn’t mistaken, but I wasn’t about to admit it. I tried to stand still, tried to keep my arms wrapped around myself for the sole purpose of keeping them from wrapping around the man standing in front of me. My knees knocked together, and I hoped Sebastian didn’t realize how badly I was shaking, how badly I wanted him right here, right on this loading dock, wherever we could find a place to be together.

“How did you know where to find me here?” I asked, trying to keep my mind away from what I really wanted to do—kiss him again. “How do you think it makes me feel when I’m all alone and some asshole blocks me in at a loading dock?” Horny, but I wasn’t about to let him know that.

“It was easy enough to figure out,” Sebastian said dismissively. “Your father showed me some of the places your farm ships produce to and then it was just a matter of looking at shipment manifests for the organic grocers around the area, driving around, and maybe even a little luck.”

I gaped at him. “You mean you’ve just been driving around to all the organic grocers in Los Angeles hoping to run into me?”

He at least had the decency to look sheepish. “Yes.”

“How long have you been at it?”

“Since you refused to talk to me.”

“I’ve been refusing to talk to you for a long time,” I said, realization dawning on me. “That means that you’ve been at this for a really long time.”

“Which is why I wasn’t about to let you go when I found you,” he said. “Can’t we talk about this—about us?”

“We are talking,” I said cautiously.

“Then why don’t we go somewhere more comfortable?”

I shook my head. “I don’t want this to turn into something else.”

“What else would it turn into? I just want to talk.”

“All it took for me to kiss you was me stepping out of my truck,” I reminded him. “If you want to talk, then fine. Let’s talk. But nothing else.”

“Hey, you’re the one who kissed me,” Sebastian pointed out, putting his hands up defensively. “You should be lecturing yourself, not me.”

“Fine.” I was still shaking, my heart still pounding, still eager to think about anything else other than kissing him. “What was so damn important that you wasted whole weeks of your life to try and find me?”

Sebastian barked out a laugh, his dimples deepening. I loved those dimples. “Seriously? What do you think was so damn important?”

“I’m the one who asked the question.”

“You’re important,” he said, his finger poking my shoulder almost painfully. “You are, Rachel. Why don’t you understand that?”

What was there to understand? I was a country girl, a farmer’s daughter, who wasn’t quite sure of her place in life. I wished I could’ve dressed better or done my makeup better, but that wasn’t what my existence was about right now. I was just fumbling through my life, helplessly attracted to someone who was just too damn different from me for there to ever be hope of a real relationship.

“I guess I just don’t understand what you’re trying to look for,” I said finally. “We don’t have a thing in common, Sebastian.”

“That’s not true.”

“Well, fine,” I said. “We both deal with organic produce. But that’s the only thing.”

“Also not true.”

“Well, then you tell me what we have in common. Enlighten me.” I was feeling more than a little frustrated. I didn’t understand what Sebastian was doing here, what he was trying to get across to me.

“Well, something we both have in common right now is that neither of us would mind if we had a repeat performance of what happened in the barn, right here and now, on this loading dock.”

I inhaled sharply at this new piece of information. That meant that Sebastian was just as attracted to me right now as I was to him.

“We’re not doing a thing on this loading dock,” I said. “It’s filthy. Anyone can see us.”

“The barn wasn’t exactly sterile,” he reasoned drily. “And it was one of the most active places on the farm. Anyone could’ve just walked in on us, but I seem to recall that it didn’t bother you very much then. Did you find the challenge heightened some of your senses? Made things a bit more pleasurable?”

I shuddered at the memory, at his insistent questions. If Sebastian was trying to turn me on, to turn my head and heart into mush, to turn my body into one big nerve ending for him to pluck at, it was working. I wasn’t sure that it was his intention, though. I didn’t understand anything that was going on here.

“I’ve had a long day, Sebastian,” I said. “This is my third delivery, and I’m eager to get home and go to bed. Just tell me what you came here to tell me and be done with it.”

“That’s just the thing,” he said, taking a step forward. We were so close now that I could’ve stuck my tongue out and licked his Adam’s apple if I’d wanted to. “I don’t think I want to be done with it.”

He ended the need for words with a long kiss, so sudden that all I could think to do was kiss him back, my body almost sagging with relief at doing the thing I’d wanted to do this entire time. I’d wanted to kiss him, wanted to talk to him, wanted to see him, and I’d been ignoring all of those impulses. Was Sebastian my passion? Was he the thing my heart most desired? Did I dream of being with him?

I didn’t think I was ready to answer any of those questions, and I was relieved not to have to answer them. I was relieved to just open my mouth and my arms and accept him.

I broke the kiss, out of breath. “I told you that we weren’t going to have sex here on the loading dock. I’m serious. It’s disgusting.” Produce wrappings and stray cartons littered the ground, along with peels and cores of fruit tossed aside after workers enjoyed their little taste of the product after offloading it into the store. The ground was damp from God knew what, and it was dark and creepy to boot.

“What do you suggest?” Sebastian asked, grinning. “I am all ears.”

“You’re all something,” I said, grinding up against his very obvious erection. How long had he been sporting that thing? All I could think of was having it inside me again, and it was all I could do to not just give in and let him take me there against the railings.

“Here,” I said, opening the door to the cabin of my truck. “In here.”

“I like your style,” he laughed, sliding in beside me and closing the door behind him. He patted the seat. “This is surprisingly roomy. A lot more space than if you’d picked my car.”

“Why would I pick your car over my truck?” I kissed him before he could try and answer me. It had been too long. My body had been bereft of his touch, and I hadn’t even realized it until he touched me again and it responded, arching into the palm of his hand, helping his fingers find the hem of my shirt, the way beneath the lacy material of my bra. He was so good at that, finding the places he needed to be, that I really didn’t have to guide him. I only wished we had more space—and perhaps more privacy—to more fully explore each other’s bodies.

He laughed and kissed my throat. “One of these days, we’re going to try something revolutionary called a bed,” he said, seeming to read my mind. “It’s going to change everything you think about sex.”

“I think we’ve been doing all right for ourselves,” I said, pushing my jeans down and kicking them off. I was in my boots again, as always, and they stayed on for everything.

“I like the way you look,” Sebastian said, his voice little more than a sexy growl, “naked except for your boots. My farm girl.”

A shiver raced up my spine at that—
his
farm girl?—but I didn’t read too much into it. The only thing I was interested in unraveling right now was his belt from his trouser’s waistband.

“Out of practice?” he joked. “It has been a while.”

I slapped his guiding hands away and completed the task myself, not stopping in my efforts until his cock was freed from its prison of fabrics, jumping out of his pants and standing at attention. Sebastian started to say something else, but his words died in his throat as I leaned down and swallowed him whole.

He tasted clean, almost as if he’d just climbed out of a shower, but that was hard to believe. He didn’t even smell terribly musky, as if he’d been sitting down and sweating all day. It was difficult to explain. He smelled and tasted good, like a man who’d been lounging in a fresh breeze and clean sunshine. It made sucking his cock a pleasurable experience—magnified by the little sounds he was making. I dragged my teeth gently up that sensitive length and was rewarded by his hissed intake of breath.

“Shit, Rachel,” he gasped, as I looked at him and grinned toothily. “I could let you do that all night.”

“Too bad,” I said, pouting prettily. “I have other plans for us.”

I’d only blown him for a little while to make that flesh wet and ready for me. I kicked one leg over his thighs and straddled him, my knees digging into the old leather of the seats on either side of his lap.

“What about you?” he asked, his voice shaking in spite of his bravado. “Can’t I return the favor?”

“I’m wet already,” I promised him, as I lifted myself with my knees before sinking down on his cock. It was like a revelation, sitting there, motionless as we both panted as if we’d just run a marathon. The man simply felt good inside of me. There was no other way to explain it. Our bodies just liked each other—even if we clashed on things otherwise. Sebastian had realized it before, and I was only just now starting to understand what he’d meant. He couldn’t leave me alone because his body wouldn’t let him, and his mind was made up. I loved him in that moment, loved him and hated him, hated myself for loving him. It would’ve been easier if we’d been terrible at sex, but that just wasn’t the case.