Chapter Four
Malcolm
I didn’t why it felt so impossible to turn down a dare from Gunner. It wasn’t like we were children in a playground or anything. We were both grown adults, and grown adults didn’t dare each other to do things.
Except that when he did dare me, my cheeks got warm, and I felt kind of dizzy. He looked me straight in the eye, and he got that cocky grin on his face, and I wanted to say yes. I wanted to show him I wasn’t an uptight librarian, scared to take a risk, even though I actually was very scared by him.
I was scared by how arrogant he acted and how sexy his smile looked on his smug face. I was scared of what I would do with him and just as scared that he would turn away from me, moving on to some other random guy the second he figured out I was actually kind of a stick in the mud.
Damn it, I thought.I need an apartment, and I need to run my errands, but I don’t need this.
So why was I walking down the street, heading toward the park with Gunner?
“You ever have a date in the park?” he asked.
I kept pace beside him, my loafers clicking on the pavement. He kept saying that word,date.I always thought of dates as things you scheduled ahead of time, like a fancy dinner you arrived at with a bouquet of flowers. Maybe for Gunner, though, dates had more to do with grabbing random men and dragging them into dive bars. “No, I never have gone on a date in the park. Have you?”
“I’ve made some memories there, yeah.”
He turned at me and winked after he said it, and I realized what he meant.
Oh god. I was definitely in over my head.
We arrived to the park at the bottom of the hill, and Gunner paused, rummaging around in his jacket and pulling out a pack of cigarettes. When he flicked a lighter and started smoking, I turned to the trees to hide my frown. Even if he were open to hearing my anti-smoking argument, I was pretty sure it would bring the whole weird afternoon to a screeching halt.
The park itself was gorgeous. It wasn’t too large, probably the size of a couple of city blocks, but it was filled with pine trees, hardy shrubs, and winding paths. I imagined it would be easy to slip away into the nature, which made me anxious all over again.
What was Gunner planning to do, once he got me back there? Did he think I would actually have adate-date with him in the middle of the park? Maybe he’d lead me back into some cluster of trees, get me hot and bothered, and then laugh in my face and run away?
By the time I turned back to him, I was feeling so flustered I had to unbutton my collar. With the cigarette dangling between his fingers and a small trail of smoke rising into the air, however, Gunner looked just as cool as ever.
And just as ready to devour me whole.
“Don’t stop there,” he teased. “Unbutton the whole thing.”
I started blushing even harder. It was like his eyes were touching every part of my body, roaming over my skin and exploring every tender spot while I quivered in front of him. “I don’t know what you think you’re going to get out of me,” I objected, doing my best not to stammer. “But if you’re imagining I’m going to walk back into that park and take my clothes off in public, you’ve got another thing coming. That’s gross, and perverted, and just—”
“What if I dare you again?”
“What?”
He stepped closer, still grinning, and leaned in until his mouth was inches from my ear. “You always say yes when I dare you,” he whispered. The tickle of his breath almost made me gasp, and my cock stiffened in response.
I turned to meet his eyes. “No way,” I said as flatly as I could.
Please,I thought.Please dare me.
Gunner turned on his heel and strutted into the park, forcing me to hurry to keep up. “What are you so scared of?” he asked over his shoulder. “It’s just a little walk in the park. You worried about disappointing your mom or something, getting seen with a guy like me?”
The answer was yes, actually, although I didn’t say it. At twenty-five, I didn’t technically answer to my parents anymore, but they still had a firm grip on my life. My mother was an archivist at the Museum of History and Industry, and my father was an accomplished historian, and I definitely took after them. They lived a well-ordered life with a home that was kept immaculate, a schedule that was busy and productive, and a devotion to their careers that came before anything else. My parents had always taught me that proper behavior mattered most, and I had always heeded their lessons, dressing in the clothes that they deemed appropriate and asking a nice, polite gentleman to prom and even attending the college they decided was most advantageous. From my career to my fashion, my parents had shaped every part of my life.
And their expectations did not include me running around with some rough guy who threw his cigarette butts on the ground.
“I’m not scared of disappointing my parents,” I lied.
He spun on his heel, walking backward for a moment to look me in the eye and shoot me another cocky grin. “What is it, then? Your reputation at the library? Are the other bookworms quick to disapprove?”
He was teasing me. I had been teased so often in my life, but there was something different about this. It wasn’t like the guys in high school, mocking me because I refused to say any swear words. And it wasn’t like the kids in my neighborhood, making fun of me when everyone else broke curfew to play flashlight tag and I went to hide in my bedroom instead. It felt different, like he was teasing me because he liked me, or because he wanted to get something from me.
