The Dare Collection January 2019. JC Harroway

ever seen.

      He was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen.

      My body hummed, remembering what had happened between us two days earlier, the way it had been doing for two days straight now, driving me absolutely crazy.

      I didn’t need the reminder. I didn’t want the reminder. But, like Pavlov’s dog, all I had to do was set eyes on Xander, remember how he’d touched me, what it felt like to have him make me beg then thrust inside me, and I was a quivering wreck.

      He leaned one of those sexy forearms on the doorframe and tilted his head to the side, black eyes staring into mine.

      He didn’t say a word yet I flushed, immediately hating myself for it. Part of me wanted to thank him for seeing me, but I crushed that part flat. I was not going to thank him for anything.

      ‘I want to talk to you,’ I announced belligerently.

      ‘Clearly.’ His voice was cold. ‘What’s the problem, Poppy?’

      ‘I’m not having that conversation out here.’

      ‘You’re not having it in here either.’

      I took a step towards him, fury burning inside me. ‘Why not? Scared you might suddenly want to rip my clothes off and make me beg again?’

      Heat flared in his eyes at the same time as his mouth hardened, and I knew he hadn’t meant to give away the fact that my suggestion had turned him on.

      A deep satisfaction filled me, along with something that felt like relief. He’d ignored me so completely the past two days that I’d been beginning to question whether he’d ever wanted me at all.

      But it seemed that he did, which was good. I could use that.

      He shifted in the doorway but didn’t move, keeping one forearm against the frame while his body blocked the rest of it. ‘Go home,’ he said flatly. ‘I’ve got nothing to say to you.’

      ‘Obviously you don’t.’ I took another step closer until we were inches apart. ‘In fact, for the past two days you’ve been doing a very good job of acting like I don’t exist at all.’

      ‘Does it matter?’ His face was expressionless and yet somehow his dark eyes burned. ‘You don’t like me anyway.’

      ‘Is that what this let’s ignore Poppy thing is all about? You have sex with me then dismiss me like dirt because you think I don’t like you? What are you? Twelve?’

      His mouth hardened even further, the embers of banked anger glowing in his eyes. And, in that moment, all I could think about was blowing on those embers, making them glow brighter, turning them into flames. I wanted to get beneath his control and unleash the passion I’d seen in his office. I wanted to have him concentrate that passion on me.

      He did want me. He did.

      ‘I didn’t...dismiss you.’ There was a slight note of hesitancy in his deep, dark voice. ‘I’m sorry you interpreted it that way.’

      ‘Well, how else was I supposed to interpret it?’ I demanded. ‘You gave me the most intense orgasm I’ve ever had, made me confess my most secret fantasies to you, then acted like it was nothing. You told me to get on with my work and didn’t speak to me again for two days. Two days!’ I was shaking all of a sudden, full of remembered shame and anger. ‘You made me feel like I was nothing, Xander. And you know what? People have been doing that all my goddamn life and I’m sick of it!’

      His gaze narrowed, the look on his beautiful face suddenly intense.

      I was aware of what I’d said and of what that had revealed.

      God, I was a bloody idiot. What did I expect, confronting him like this? What did I want from him? An apology? A repeat performance?

       For him to take you in his arms and hold you? Make you feel like you’re actually worth something?

      My chest ached. No, screw that. I was worth something and I didn’t need him to prove it to me. Which made coming here a huge mistake.

      He didn’t care that he’d hurt me. He didn’t even want to discuss it. And now I’d revealed how much his dismissal had affected me.

      What a stupid thing to do.

      I turned sharply without a word, intending to leave.

      Until long fingers closed around my upper arm, jerking me to a stop. And then there was heat at my back, warm breath against the side of my neck.

      ‘You’re not nothing, Poppy,’ he said quietly, fiercely. ‘If you were, you wouldn’t make me so goddamn furious.’

      I was trembling and I couldn’t stop. I felt the pressure of his fingers around my upper arm, holding me still, the heat of them burning through my denim jacket. I felt the tantalising warmth of him behind me, his body probably only inches away.

      For a moment nothing happened and there was a thick silence.

      The tension between us pulled taut.

      ‘You shouldn’t have come here.’ His voice had become darker, rougher. ‘You should have stayed away from me. But you didn’t, did you? You had to come and tell me that it matters to you.’ His fingers tightened around my arm very slightly. ‘That what we did matters to you.’

      My heart raced, the deep note of command, of warning in the words making me breathless, the hum that vibrated throughout my body getting stronger.

      ‘That was a mistake, Poppy. There are reasons I put you at a distance and one of those reasons is because there are many things I want to do to you and all of them are wrong. Very, very wrong.’

      I shivered, tried to swallow to ease my dry throat. ‘But...how can they be wrong if I want them too?’

      ‘I was afraid you’d say that.’ His mouth was very near my ear, the warmth of his breath making the blood rush hard in my veins. ‘Get inside,’ he ordered.

       CHAPTER ELEVEN

       Xander

      SHE STIFFENED AND I thought I’d made a mistake and read her wrong, that she didn’t want this after all. And I was all prepared to let her go, let her walk away from me the way I should have done the first time and hadn’t.

      But then she gave a little sniff and turned towards my apartment. And when I released her, she walked right inside.

      Instantly I was hard, desperate.

      I should never have opened the door to her. Should never have let the concierge usher her upstairs to me.

      I should have ignored her text and continued with my search for her father’s money, the way I’d been doing all evening.

      I’d had to bring work home because doing it at the office while she was around had been damn near impossible. Even having her in a separate room was no good—I couldn’t concentrate, knowing she was right outside my office door, with her perfect, curvy little body and those molten copper eyes.

      I’d hoped that telling Leon what had happened with her father would rid me of this need for her, and that he’d agree with me that she had to be kept at a distance.

      But he’d told me I was being ridiculous. That I couldn’t blame myself for a choice a man had made for himself.

      Yes, an action that I’d taken had resulted in her father’s death, but I hadn’t known that. I’d been fifteen. I hadn’t known that the financial game my father had been playing with me had been real, not until I was twenty, and it was a guilt I’d been carrying around for a good ten years.

      I’d decided not to tell Leon what I wanted to do with that man’s daughter. How