The Dare Collection January 2019. JC Harroway

      Instead I smiled back. ‘You okay?’

      She made a deep, satisfied sound. ‘Oh, yeah. More than okay. I think you might have broken me a little though.’

      ‘I do aim to please.’

      She reached up and touched my jaw, her fingers gentle, a casual intimacy that had my heart racing for some reason, that frozen piece of me thawing a little more. No one ever touched me like that. Just because they could, because they wanted to, as if touching me was a connection they needed.

      My mother had died when I was small so I never had memories of her touch and my father wasn’t one for physical affection. He wasn’t one for affection at all. No, if anyone touched me it was because they wanted sex. Nothing more.

      I tried to ignore the way her fingertips felt like flames, searing my flesh, and concentrated on getting us into the en suite bathroom.

      It had a huge white-tiled shower and I carefully put Poppy down on the side of the bath before going and turning it on. Then, while the water heated, I stripped.

      She watched me, her eyes widening with obvious awe, and I wasn’t too proud to admit that I liked it. Liked that she liked what she saw.

      ‘Come on.’ I pulled her to her feet. ‘Let’s get you warm and clean.’

      ‘I am warm.’ Her voice was slightly husky. ‘And I’m not dirty either.’

      But she didn’t protest as I ushered her underneath the warm water, giving a sensual little shiver as it cascaded over her, turning her hair into a skein of liquid black satin flowing down her back.

      I picked up the bottle of shower gel and pumped some into my hands, then touched her smooth wet skin.

      She groaned and leaned back into me as I ran my palms down her spine. ‘Oh, that feels good.’

      There was something calming in taking control of her and there was something calming in taking care of her too, and for a moment I simply stopped thinking, consumed with the simple task of washing her beautiful body.

      ‘Why did you make my word seven?’ she asked sleepily after a while, breaking the comfortable silence.

      The question took me by surprise, so much so that I found myself answering before I could think better of it. ‘It’s the name of a...dog I befriended when I was a kid. Seven was my lucky number.’

      ‘You had a pet?’

      ‘Seven wasn’t a pet. At least, she wasn’t mine. She was a stray.’ Small and white and ragged round the edges, she was a mongrel with bright black eyes. ‘She was afraid of people, but I managed to make friends with her.’ My small triumph. I’d never forgotten the way that dog had finally let me stroke her, after weeks of slowly gaining her trust.

      I’d always wanted a pet. Something that was mine. A little sister. A friend. Someone. But Dad had kept me isolated because it had made me easier to control. Isolated even from my own brothers. That had changed when Ajax had first come to me when I was twenty and he’d told me those financial games I’d been playing were real. And that he needed my help to take Dad down.

      It had taken us years to finally do it, but take him down we had, and we’d grown closer since then.

      Even so, I still didn’t have anything that was mine. Nothing but money. That had always been enough in the past, yet now... Why did it feel like it wasn’t?

      ‘Oh, how sweet,’ Poppy murmured. ‘What happened to her?’

      The thawing thing in my chest ached.

      I slid my hands around Poppy, cupping her breasts in my palms, concentrating on the slippery warmth of her body rather than that goddamn ache. ‘Dad ran her over.’ I kept my voice level. ‘He didn’t like me being...distracted.’

      Poppy stilled. ‘He ran her over?’ She sounded appalled.

      I didn’t know why I kept talking. Maybe it was simply that I’d never told anyone about Seven before and I wanted to. ‘She disappeared one day. At first I thought she’d found a meal somewhere else, so I didn’t worry too much. But then a few more days went by and I decided to go looking for her.’ My hands slid over Poppy’s smooth skin. ‘I couldn’t find her and I thought maybe she’d moved on. And then, a couple of days after that, I was searching for something in Dad’s garage and I noticed that the front bumper of his car was bent. And when I looked closer, I saw a red stain.’ I took my hand from Poppy and rubbed absently at my chest, at the ache there, remembering the gut-punch of understanding that had hit me. ‘There was white fur in the treads of the tyre. Seven was white. And I knew.’

      Poppy was still for a moment. Then she turned in my arms suddenly, her eyes dark with sympathy as they looked up into mine. ‘Oh, Xander...’

      I shouldn’t have said anything more and yet I kept going. ‘Dad didn’t want me having friends. He refused to let me have a pet. Numbers were all he allowed me because they made him money.’

      She leaned into me, her warmth sinking into my skin. ‘That’s awful. You must have been so lonely.’

      I didn’t need or want her sympathy. It hurt for some reason.

      ‘She was just a dog,’ I said, dismissing the subject. ‘I got over it.’

      But the words sounded hollow and I hated myself for saying them. Seven hadn’t been ‘just a dog’. She’d been the one thing I’d had—even so briefly—that was mine.

      Poppy put her hands on my chest then spread them wide, her arms coming around me. Then she laid her head right over my heart, her wet hair soft against me. ‘It’s okay. I know what it feels like. I was lonely too.’

      The simplicity of the confession felt like a blow, hitting me in a place I had no idea was vulnerable. I couldn’t help thinking back to the day Dad had brought Lily home to meet us, and there had been this little girl trailing in her wake. I’d been excited to meet her and the minute I laid eyes on her I’d wanted to make her my friend. She’d reminded me weirdly of Seven, the same wary, lost look in her gaze. So I’d smiled at her.

      And she’d turned away, as if she couldn’t bear the sight of me.

      The lost note in Poppy’s voice got to me, reached inside me and twisted hard.

      ‘I tried,’ I said hoarsely. ‘I wanted to be your friend, did you know that? When you first came to us, I was excited to have a little sister.’

      There was silence, filled with the sound of rushing water.

      Christ, I sounded pathetic. Like a kid.

      Poppy turned her head then lifted it, looking up at me, a crease between her brows.

      ‘I’m sorry, Xander. I behaved...terribly over the years. I just... When I came to live with you and your family, I’d just lost my father. And Mum was very angry about it. She was angry with him for choosing to leave us and angry with me for... I dunno...being alive, I guess. She resented me in many ways.’

      Poppy paused and looked down at my chest. Her hold on me shifted and she began to draw a small circle on my left pec.

      ‘She never wanted me. I was a mistake. And after Dad died I became this millstone around her neck. Losing him was awful and Mum made me promise to be good when we came to see you, because she needed Augustus and didn’t want me to give him any reason not to marry her.’

      The movement of her finger slowed, the sparks of her touch echoing through me.

      ‘I guess I resented all of you. I wanted my dad, not another family. And then I saw you and...’ She stopped all of a sudden.

      My chest was tight, the protectiveness inside me reaching out, wanting to enfold her, wrap her up, keep her safe. Show her that she was never a mistake and that she would never be lonely.

      But, more than that, I wanted to know what she’d thought when she’d