Untamed (Untamed #1) (14 page)

Later that night, we lay in Dare’s bed on top of the comforter, fully clothed, him doodling in his sketchbook with one hand, while his other was draped over my shoulder. The air between us pulsed with tension. Even though he absentmindedly ran his fingers over my skin, I didn’t feel the warmth in his touch.

He was quiet. Eerily so. His body was here, but his mind was so far away it made me miss him. I knew he was pissed, but I didn’t know how to broach it, what to say, how to bridge the gap.

The silence stretched between us until I couldn’t stand another minute of it.

I spoke quietly. “You don’t understand what my family is like.”

“I understand that they’re killing you with their demands, but you refuse to do anything about it. That is painfully obvious.” His eyes hardened. “You’re much happier as Ree—the smiling girl who wears jeans and vintage t-shirts, and organizes gallery shows all by herself. Reagan McKinley is the unhappy, poor little rich girl who gets high and fucks bad boys in clubs just so she can feel alive.”

“
Wow
…” His words sliced through me.

“I just don’t get why you can’t break free. Live your own fucking life.”

“It’s not that simple,” I said, heat rising to my cheeks. There was so much about my life that he didn’t get, couldn’t get. It wasn’t so black and white.

“It could be.”

“They won’t let me, Dare. You don’t know what they’re like.”

“How could I? You’ve never introduced me to them. Because you’re ashamed of me.” Raw anger shaped his features as he said, “I’m your dirty little secret.”

“You know what? If that’s what you really think of me, then you can go fuck yourself. You’re sitting here telling me how well you know me, judging me, and yet you have the nerve to think I’m ashamed of YOU? REALLY?” I was shouting so loud he actually had the good sense to look shocked. “I’m ashamed of THEM, Dare. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me. You are the only person I’ve ever wanted to be with for more than one night—and every moment I am with you only makes me want you more. You are
not
my dirty little secret. You’re everything I want in my life. If I believed for even a nanosecond that they would welcome you into their fucked-up world, that they would even
tolerate
you there, I would be dragging your fantastic ass to every stupid family event I have to go to. But they won’t. They would do everything in their power to break us apart, to destroy you. THAT is why you’ve never met them. THAT is why I don’t tell them about you. I’m not keeping YOU from them—I’m keeping THEM from you.” I sighed. “From us.”

He sat there in stunned silence for a moment. “So choose
us
,” he finally said. “Why keep playing their games?”

I shook my head. “It’s…not easy or simple. But I want to. And I’m working on it, okay? Can that be enough for now?”

He stared at me, then slowly nodded. “But only because you said I have a fantastic ass.” His lips quirked upward, though tension still defined his jaw.

“I’m being serious, Dare.” I punched him in the ribs, earning a full-fledged smile.

“I know,” he said. “I know. And I’m sorry.” He pulled me against him and pressed his lips to my hair. Then he whispered, “Okay, I’ll do it.”

“Do what?”

“The show,” he said. Really quietly. Very carefully. “I’ll do the damn show.”

I couldn’t speak, couldn’t move for what felt like a full minute as I stared at him, stunned. Then I tackled him.

“Really?! You’ll do it?” I was straddling him as I kissed my way across his lips, down his jaw, over his cheeks. Then I stopped and pulled back so I could look into his eyes. “You’re not doing it just for me, are you? Because we fought?”

He shook his head. “I’m doing it
because
of you. But I’m doing it for myself.”

“Thank you! I’m seriously dying of happiness right now! Also, kinda hurting from this sharp pencil sticking in my butt.” I pulled his sketchpad and pencil from under me, feeling slightly guilty that I’d scrunched up the latest page of Dare’s work.

I was about to place both on the nightstand, when my eyes landed on his drawing. My breath caught.

“Oh, wow!” It was a phoenix. Kind of like the one he had on his shoulder, but different in every way Dare’s work diverged from Vogel’s. Dare’s bird looked feminine and pretty. Almost like it was drawn to complement his, while at the same time being completely unique on its own.

“This would make a beautiful tattoo,” I whispered.

Dare followed my gaze. “You think so?”

“It’s magnificent.” I met his eyes. “Will you paint it on me?” I pulled off my shirt and unzipped my shorts, shimmying them down my hips. Once I was only in my bra and panties, I stretched across the bed on my side, facing him.

Dare caressed my bare hip, slowly sliding his fingers up to right below where my ribs began. “Here.” It wasn’t a question. And it didn’t need to be. Dare knew my body better than I did. And he was right. That was the perfect spot.

It didn’t take long for him to set up. I loved watching him work—all pure passion and deep concentration. It was like he was transported into another dimension where only he, the canvas, and the paint existed. And tonight that canvas was me.

It was amazing to be a part of something he loved with all his heart. I could feel it in every stroke of his brush, every touch of his finger. I could feel Dare’s love for the art all the way down to my bones.

Oh, god.

The things he was doing to my body and heart shook me to my core. It wasn’t so much a sexual experience this time, as it was a deeply intimate one that made me feel things I never knew I could. And it filled me with the most amazing sense of calm.

I closed my eyes, soaking it in. Soaking him in.

“Ree?” he said. “Are you okay?”

I realized I’d never been more okay than I was in that moment.

“Yeah,” I said with a smile. A REAL smile.

He stood up and brought over a mirror. When he held it over me, I could see both his shoulder and my hip.

His phoenix and mine.

I reached toward the image.

“They’re like the two parts that come together to make a whole story,” I said. “Two parts. One whole.”

Two very different pasts. One present.

Like us.

My voice cracked. “I—” I stopped before something slipped out that I wouldn’t be able to take back. But if I was capable of love, I would love this bird. With my whole heart. “Thank you,” I said quietly. “It’s perfect.”

“Perfectly flawed.” He grinned and pointed to a place where the paint had run a bit.

“Just like me,” I said, reaching for him and pulling him down on top of me.

My lips sought out his hungrily. His tongue slipped into my mouth, tasting me so slow and deep it made my toes curl and fireworks go off behind my lids.

Something had happened while he was drawing on me that completely changed the intensity between us. Our kisses were always wild and untamed, but now there was something more to them. Something I was afraid to put a word to. So I bowed my back, raising up off the bed, trying to crush my mind, body, and soul into his until we were melded into one.

Two parts. One whole.

His hands drifted down to grip my hips and steady me. He groaned when his fingers grazed my faux tattoo. “Shit, it’s going to smudge. We should let this dry.”

“You really want to wait?” I slid my hand between us, and delved under the waistband of his jeans so I could wrap my fingers around him. He moaned, throbbing in my grip.

“Fuck it. I guess these sheets are bound to get filthy one way or another.” He rose to his knees and hooked his fingers into my underwear. A moment later my panties hit the floor. My bra followed, then his shirt and jeans.

I reached for a condom from the nightstand, but when I turned back to Dare I realized he had other plans.

“I’m going to make you mine,” he said, kissing his way to my breasts. “I’m going to claim you, body and soul.” His lips trailed down my stomach to the place I needed him most. “Say my name.” The order came as his tongue darted out to lap at my ache. “You are mine.” He licked again, then paused right over my sweet spot. “Say it, Ree.”

I lifted my hips. “Dare,
please
.”

“You are mine. Say you are mine.”

“I am yours. Only yours.” I needed him. Right now. All of him.
Everywhere
.

His smile turned wicked and his eyes darkened with lust as he pressed his mouth to my hot, tender core. He tasted me with a single leisurely lick, letting my excitement melt on his tongue before taking my clit gently between his teeth and making me cry out in pleasure.

I forgot how to breathe. How to speak. The only language I had left consisted of a lot of moans and a few grunts. Dare’s mouth was the only thing that existed in my world. The most perfect thing in the entire universe. Every sharp nip was followed by a warm, soothing lick that made my insides tense and tingle as my head spun out of control.

My hands fisted the sheets, clinging on for life as he worked me tighter and tighter into a feverish frenzy. Finally, with one last lick, he tipped me over the edge. My body convulsed as I came, the fierce pulses of pleasure rocking into the depths of my soul as I cried out his name.

Dare kissed his way up my body, leaving a little trail along my skin. I unwrapped the condom and put it on him, but when he entered me this time, there was something different about the way our bodies fit together. He filled me even more, quenching some kind of thirst I wasn’t even aware I had. With each thrust, he plunged deeper into a zone that was teeming with both pain and pleasure. My heart beat faster, harder, louder than it ever had before as I clung to his shoulders and wrapped my legs around his waist, pulling him even closer until we melded completely.

In this moment, he was mine and I was his. All his.

“I’m yours, Ree,” he said right before his body was overtaken with waves of pleasure.

It was hearing those words that pushed me over the edge again. Our bodies shook to a joint rhythm only our hearts could hear as we indulged in a high unlike any other I’d ever experienced.

Hovering directly above me, his smile was dazzling and warm. His eyes met mine and my heart skipped a beat. There was a quiet softness in them I didn’t expect to see.

“Two parts,” he said softly. “One whole.”

And my heart filled with Dare. Bubbled up and overflowed, spilled out of my body, saturating the entire apartment, the building, the city.

Coloring my entire world.

eighteen

“W
hy won’t you just let me make some space for you in my closet?” Dare said, from behind the canvas where he was putting finishing touches on
Real Ree
. “You’re sleeping in my bed every night, you’re studying on my couch, you’re eating my mac and cheese, and you’re indulging in very steamy showers in my bathroom. It just makes sense for you to bring over some clothes. No strings attached.”

There was nothing I wanted more than to move my stuff in and never leave. But my fucked-up life had never been about getting what I wanted, and if I was going to extract myself from that world, I needed to do it one step at a time. Slowly. And start with something smaller, like changing my major to art history.

Though step-size was relative, and to my parents, switching out of Political Science was not going to seem small.

At all.

“Ree?” Dare had stopped painting and was looking at me.

I looked up from the open textbook in my lap. “I’ll think about it. Maybe after midterms.”

His eyes darkened. “You mean after the mayoral election, right?”

No. Maybe. Okay, yes. I had high hopes that things would ease up once my parents began campaigning. They’d be too focused on winning voters over to be able to deal with what they were going to see as my betrayal to the family. Too distracted.

I hoped.

I opened my mouth to explain, but Dare beat me to it.

“Forget I brought up the fucking closet,” he said. “We’ve already declared this apartment an election-free zone, so I’m going to keep it that way. For as long as you need, alright?”

I nodded, wondering if
forever
was an option.