The Dare (16 page)

"Do you feel guilty?"tThe agent asked.

"For?"

"For potentially harming innocent people with
your schemes and ministrations?"

"I'm sorry." Grandma shook her head. "I don't
understand the question?"

Jace

"How's the ass?" Beth called behind her as I
let out another streak of swear words into the trees.

"Angry."

"Maybe he's hungry."

"No, I'm going to go ahead and go with angry.
I'd be pissed if a two-hundred-pound man was riding me too."

"Maybe you should stop talking for a while."
She laughed. "You're not doing so well with the whole
stringing-words-together thing."

"Damn mating spiders threw me off."

"And again, point proven. Maybe this should
be quiet time where you stare longingly at me and say I'm beautiful
and irresistible and
—
"

"Can we switch animals?" I complained as
Donkey let out a fart that smelled like dead chicken and enchilada.
How was this supposed to be a romantic excursion?

She turned around and smirked as Donkey made
another grunt and tried to catch up. "No."

"Please?"

"Be the prince, Jace!"

"My noble steed's older than Grandma! I need
a steed!"

Donkey farted again, this time gifting me
with the smell of roses. If roses smelled like burning flesh.

"Such a stud." She chuckled. Her posture was
perfect on the horse as it galloped ahead. It made her look like
some sort of avenging princess storming the castle.

Shit. Did that make me the damsel?

"Beth…" I growled. "I take it this isn't
impressing you or making you feel like you're living in some damn
romance novel."

She stopped the horse and turned around.
"Take off your shirt, and we'll talk."

"No." I shook my head firmly. "I have to draw
the line somewhere. I'm not going to take off my shirt while riding
an ancient donkey through the jungles of Hawaii."

"Fairytale." Beth coughed, her damn eyes
lighting up with humor, while mine narrowed with self-loathing and
defeat.

"Why yes, Channel Six News, I am a
prostitute. Want to see my client list? Oh, Senator Brevik? He's so
extravagant!"

"Well played." With jerky movements, I
finally managed to get Donkey to stop walking and peeled off my
shirt. "Happy?"

"Immensely." She sighed happily. "Now
mush."

"Not at the Iditarod," I called after
her.

"So what are we supposed to say?" she
grumbled. "Our guide is too far ahead of us, and I'm not getting
lost again."

"I don't know, say please?" I really had no
experience with animals or nature. My hikes had been by the
Columbia River, not in spider territory.

Hybrid Metrosexual:
Man
who likes showers more than dirt but still knows how to smoke
cigars and chop wood.
See also:
Tom Hardy.

"Go!" Beth pulled on the reigns and then
kicked her heels into horse's sides.

Of course, it reared up.

And, of course, it took off into a
gallop.

She wanted a fairytale ending?

"Donkey! Go!" I kicked the donkey's sides. It
turned its head and looked at me like I was some sort of irritating
fly, buzzing around his overly large ears. "Donkey, go!"

"Well,
shit
."

The donkey hee-hawed and took off into a
gallop after Beth. I held on for dear life as the ride jolted my
teeth near out of my head. Really?
Shit
was his word?

"Beth!"

The donkey slowed.

"Shit, donkey. Shit!"

Hello, second wind.

"Jace!" she called from behind her. "What do
I do?"

The guide had stopped his own horse and was
looking on. He took an apple out of his bag and bit into it as
juice ran down his chin.

"A little help!" I yelled as Donkey decided
to slow down to a walk.

"The horse will stop when it wants to stop,"
the guide yelled back.

Tour guide, my ass. Had we even signed
release forms?

"Beth, pull on the reigns!"

Donkey was gaining on her. Okay that was a
lie. Mold grew faster than the animal was moving.

"Tug them back and say halt!"

"Halt!" Beth yelled, pulling on the
reigns.

The horse reared up again, this time causing
Beth to fall out of the saddle and down the horse's backside,
directly into a puddle of water.

But hey, the horse stopped. So I counted it a
win.

"Whoa there, boy, whoa."

The donkey screeched to a halt or, if you
were watching, slowly took one last step and began chewing on the
grass next to Beth's foot.

I jumped off and ran toward her, much like a
prince rescuing the fair damsel. You know, if the prince rode an
ass and used a hair dryer to fight off spiders. Then sure, I was
the prince. "Are you hurt?"

"I don't think so?" Beth touched her fingers
to her temples and shook her head a few times. "But I'm going to
have a bruise on my entire backside for at least a month."

I couldn't hold my laugh in any longer. "Some
excursion, huh?"

"Yeah," her eyes narrowed, "some excursion."
She pulled me into the rather large puddle and splashed me with
water.

Laughing, I pulled her into my arms and
kissed her. It just seemed like the right moment
—
you know, with Donkey looking on and farting and the
mud caked to my chest and face.

"I'd get up if I were you." The guide
suddenly appeared with his horse and damn half-eaten apple.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah." He took another loud bite of his
apple. "Puddles are a mating ground for mosquitos, and those bites
swell as big as watermelon around here."

Beth and I both jumped up as fast as we
could. The ten year old in me wanted to push her back into the
puddle, point, and laugh.
Fairytale, fairytale
. I clenched
my teeth. I really needed to start trying harder. The sooner things
went well, the sooner I could put the week of spiders, donkeys, and
mating mosquitoes behind me.

"Well," the guide scratched his head, "guess
you'll need to wash off. The waterfall is just over that ledge
right there. I'll hold the animals while you guys explore. Return
in a half-hour so we can make it back in time for dinner."

"Great." I held out my hand. "Let's go Beth.
I don't think Donkey wants to carry both of us, and I don't trust
the horse."

She slipped her hand in mine. We were silent
as I led her around the ledge and down toward the water.

"Wow." Beth breathed. "That's gorgeous!"

The waterfall was at least thirty feet high
with jagged rocks near the bottom. A pool was behind the waterfall
and there were steps that led into it.

"Huh, that's kinda cool." I pointed. "People
must come down here for
—
oh dear
Lord."

"What?" Beth's eyes followed where I was
pointing.

A very large hairy man had just appeared from
the lagoon; he must have been taking a dip because when I had
originally looked, the water wasn't really moving.

It sure as hell was moving now.

"Um..." Beth chewed her fingernail. "I'm
trying to decide if being clean is worth it."

I looked down at my muddy jeans and dirt
caked arms. "It's worth it."

"Okay," Beth peeled off her shirt, "but let
it be known: if it makes the six o'clock news that you were bathing
under a waterfall with a large naked man, I'm not coming to your
defense."

"Thanks," I muttered. As I unbuttoned my
jeans, a moment of panic hit me swiftly in the gut. Was I really
going to jump naked into the water? And why the hell was I suddenly
nervous about being naked?

"Last one in's a rotten egg," Beth yelled. I
looked up. And nearly had a stroke as I watched her perfect body
catapult into the water in a perfect dive.

"Well, shit," I mumbled.

A distant hee-haw from Donkey followed.

Great. My sidekick was an ass. At least he
had good hearing.

I threw off my boxers and joined Beth in the
water.

The man had disappeared again under the
waterfall, leaving us alone in the main part of the pool.

Beth popped up out of the water, but in my
fantasy-like state, everything was happening in slow motion. She
shook her head. As water droplets fell across her body, she bit
down hard on her lower lip and then blinked the water away from her
eyes before giving me a come hither glance.

Hell yes.

I felt like I was experiencing my own version
of Peter Pan when he gets rescued by mermaids. I don't care what
guy you ask
—
the mermaids in that story
were hot as hell.

Side note to parents
:,
The reasons kids like that story is because there are no rules in
Neverland, and the mermaids are hot.

Screw Tinkerbell. Just give me mermaids.

Or Beth.

Beth as a mermaid.

Beth in a mermaid costume under a waterfall
holding a bottle of
—

"Jace?" Beth snapped her fingers in front of
my face. "Are you sick or something? You're all flushed."

"Viagra." I nodded, "It's, uh, probably still
in my system."

"You do know you can only use that excuse
possibly one more time, right?"

"I'm aware," I croaked, reaching out to touch
her smooth clean skin. "I'm also frighteningly aware of you."

"Frighteningly?" Beth repeated. "Is that a
compliment? Or does that mean I look scary."

"You look beautiful," I said honestly. "Scary
beautiful. The type of beautiful that guys are afraid to touch. The
type of beautiful that makes men want to risk everything for one
taste, one touch, one night. Mix that with your brains, and you're
the epitome of why men fight wars."

Beth's smile lit up my world. "Are you saying
men fight over intelligence as much as they fight over beauty?"

"Yes," I whispered, pulling her body against
mine as I took us closer to the waterfall. "Because you wear your
intelligence, it's part of your beauty. You can't separate the two.
I admire both. I'm attracted to both."

Her breath hitched as a blush stained her
cheeks. "Nice words."

"True words." I cupped her face. "You may be
asking for the fairytale, but I wouldn't lie to you just to make
you feel better."

She tried to jerk away from me. But I held
her face captive.

"If you could see what I see," I traced her
jaw with my fingertips, "you would fully understand why you are the
most frightening woman I've ever met."

"I do see what you see." Beth sighed. "That's
the problem."

"I disagree."

"Big shock."

"Listen to me." I pulled her flush against my
body. "You see boring. I see brilliant. You see brown hair, I see
brown hair with honey highlights. You see normal pale-pink lips, I
see bubble gum."

"Bubble gum?" She smirked.

"That's what you taste like." I nipped her
lower lip with my teeth. "Damn bubblegum that never loses its
flavor. I could taste you all day and still crave your sweetness."
I was struggling between my own honesty and feelings. I wanted her
to see herself how I did, but at the same time, telling her these
things? It didn't change what I would do. I would walk away. I
would. I would. I had to keep telling myself that.

"Why don't you?"

"What?" I snapped out of it.

"Conduct an experiment."

She trailed her fingers down my chest. I felt
it in all the places I was trying to ignore, so I kept her virtue
intact. Knowing a hairy middle-aged man was most likely watching us
was literally the only thread holding my arousal together.

"What kind of experiment?"

"A taste test." Her arms wrapped around me,
which meant we were chest to chest, her softness against every
plane on my body.

"I like tasting." My mouth collided with hers
before I could form another thought. I wasn't sure if I leaned in
or she leaned in, or if I was seriously hallucinating from being
drugged by Grandma.

In that moment. I didn't want to be
honorable. I really wanted to be a manwhore like Jake. I wanted to
be the guy who didn't apologize all the freaking time. I didn't
want to be the stuffy US senator, who half of the state hated. I
didn't want to have to worry about someone watching me, or ruining
my reputation.

I just wanted to
have
her
.

And I was selfish enough to want to take her
any way I could
—
even if that meant that
I'd be giving her nothing in return. It made me the worst type of
man to willingly walk into something, knowing that I wasn't going
to stay. I may not be lying to her about my actions. But I knew
that actions helped people form opinions, and my actions would lead
her to believe I wanted more than the next few days
—
and that was the last thing I could afford. A
relationship past the few days we had.

"Sorry to break this little love scene up,"
our guide said from the shore. "But if we're going to make it back
in time for your dinner reservation, you gotta wrap this here up.
How much longer you need? Five? Maybe ten minutes?"

I jerked away from Beth and grumbled, "Five
minutes? Really, man?"

"At least thirty." Beth winked, bless her
heart. "But we'd have to charge for the show, so we may as well get
out now."

"Damn, I would have liked a little show,"
another voice chimed in from behind us.

I slowly turned to see the giant hairy man
who, no doubt had a giant hairy spider like Frank as a pet. He was
grinning from ear to ear. And again, arousal disappeared faster
than it had appeared in the first place.

"We'll just be going now." Beth grabbed my
arm.

"Turn around," I snapped at the man who was
still watching.

He laughed.

"I will drown you."

He stood to his full height of at least seven
feet.