The Dare Collection January 2019. JC Harroway

I scowled. ‘Bullshit. We weren’t sleeping together when I took it off you.’

      ‘No, but we were when you gave it to him.’ She shifted in my lap, twisting so she could look at me. ‘Would you have given it to him if I wasn’t your “fuck toy”?’

      I didn’t like the way she said those words. I didn’t like the confrontational look in her eyes. ‘What the hell is the matter?’ I wasn’t quite sure what I was so annoyed about and yet I was annoyed all the same. ‘I thought you’d be pleased about this.’

      She looked away again, silent for a long moment.

      But I wasn’t having any of that.

      ‘Tell me what’s going on, Poppy,’ I growled. ‘Unless you seriously want another spanking tonight?’

      I saw the by now familiar flash of fire in her eyes and realised that was a stupid question. Of course she wanted it. She loved the spankings I gave her.

      ‘Or perhaps if you don’t tell me,’ I amended, keeping the note of warning in my voice, ‘you won’t get a spanking at all.’

      This time the fire in her eyes was anger. ‘Okay, fine. I just...don’t want to end up like Mum. Getting everything from a man simply because I’m sleeping with him.’

      I couldn’t quite keep the astonishment off my face. She really thought that?

       Of course she’d think that. Remember the kind of person Lily is and what Poppy told you about her.

      Lily was an opportunist, always had been, always would be, I knew that. And Poppy had told me how her mother had made her feel...

      My anger drained away. ‘This is different.’ I injected all the certainty I could into the words. ‘You’re not your mother, Poppy.’

      ‘Aren’t I?’ Her gaze was very direct. ‘Do you know what it’s like getting hit on all the time? By men who are supposed to be my employers, touching me, making awful suggestions. Telling me I can keep my job if only I could do them a couple of “favours”.’ There was bitterness in her tone. ‘You want to know why I never keep a job very long? That’s why. Because I’m not going to put up with that shit. Not like Mum did. And I’m not going to take advantage of it like she did either. I want a job that I got on my own, by my own talent, not because the man I’m sleeping with happens to—’

      I lifted my hand, gripped the back of her neck and squeezed gently to calm her, making her break off, her breathing fast.

      ‘I hear you,’ I said into the silence, holding her gaze with mine, letting her know that I understood what she was saying. And I did. I really did. Anger simmered inside me. Anger for her and what she’d had to put up with. ‘And if I could I’d punch every one of those bastards who made you feel uncomfortable.’ I tightened my grip on her, reminding her of my possession and that I had her back. ‘But that’s not what’s happening here. You really think I’d take your drawings to Ajax if I didn’t think they were good enough?’

      She blinked, lashes fluttering.

      ‘Well?’ I demanded, wanting to hear her say it.

      ‘No.’ The word sounded cracked. ‘I guess not.’

      ‘No,’ I repeated, part of me surprised at my own insistence. ‘I wouldn’t waste either his time or my own. I gave those drawings to Ajax because they were good, because I thought he would like them and he did.’ I didn’t know why it was so important to me that she understood. Maybe it was because of what she’d told me about her professors, about how they hadn’t been excited about her drawings, about the note of disappointment I’d heard in her voice, of doubt. And I didn’t want her doubting herself. ‘Even if I hadn’t been sleeping with you and I’d seen those drawings, I would have taken them to Ajax.’

      She stared at me for a long moment, her expression guarded. ‘Even...even if we were still hating each other?’

      ‘Yes.’ I didn’t hesitate or ask myself why it was important to me that she had confidence in her own talent. I only knew that it was. ‘I’d be stupid not to. People will love your designs. They’re incredibly accessible. My job is to manage the company’s money and see that we make more of it and your designs will help us do that.’

      Emotions crossed her face, moved like shadows in her eyes. ‘You wouldn’t...wouldn’t say that simply to get in my pants, would you?’

      I couldn’t help smiling at that. ‘I’m already in your pants.’

      ‘You know what I mean.’

      ‘No, I wouldn’t say that. I value honesty, Poppy. And I don’t like liars. I’ll always tell you the truth, understand?’

       Except when it comes to her father, right?

      She let out a long breath. ‘Well, okay then.’

      I ignored the voice in my head, exerting slight pressure on the back of her neck and easing her forward, brushing my mouth over hers in a feather-light kiss. ‘You’re talented,’ I said softly against her lips. ‘And it’s got nothing to do with your looks or how good you are in bed. It’s all in how you think and who you are. And it’s good, Poppy. It’s really, really good.’

      Her breath caught, her eyes wide and staring into mine, and I caught another flash of her vulnerability. As if she’d never heard those words from another person before.

      Then her lashes came down and she put her hand against my chest, giving me a little shove. ‘Oh, well, since a man told me I was good, I must be.’

      She was protecting herself and I got that, but I felt annoyed that she could dismiss my opinion so lightly.

      ‘I can’t help being a man. But that doesn’t make what I said any less true.’

      Her hand slid down my bare chest to the waistband of the trousers I still had on. ‘No, I know. You’re trying to make me feel better; I get it.’

      I slid my fingers up the back of her neck and into her hair, holding on tightly and tugging her head back so she was looking at me again. ‘I didn’t say that to make you feel better. I said it because it’s true.’

      She tried to pull away but I held her tight, keeping her gaze on mine.

      ‘You’re not your mother, Poppy. And you shouldn’t doubt either yourself or your ability.’

      A spark glowed in her eyes, a familiar spark. ‘I don’t doubt it.’

      ‘Are you sure about that?’

      ‘Of course I’m sure. I don’t—’

      ‘Then why do you keep getting so defensive and angry? Is my opinion not worth anything to you? Is that what you’re trying to say?’

      She fell silent, staring at me for a long moment, and I could feel the tension in her. She was all prickles and spikes sometimes, but I knew what that was all about now. They were her defences. And, from what she’d just said about pricks hitting on her, she’d needed them.

      ‘You don’t have to fight me,’ I said when she didn’t speak. ‘I’m on your side, okay?’

      Her eyes glittered strangely, like there were tears in them. ‘Why? Why are you on my side?’

      ‘You even have to ask that?’

      ‘Of course I have to ask that. No one’s ever been on my side before. Why should you be any different?’

      She was being honest, painfully so, and it made something twist in my chest. There were people who should have been on her side, like her mother, for example, and yet Lily hadn’t been. Lily hadn’t been on anyone’s side but her own.

      It was wrong and it offended my sense of fairness down to the bone.

      I stared right into her eyes, into her hurt and vulnerable soul. ‘I am different.