The Dare Collection January 2019. JC Harroway

again, trailing his mouth over the small of my back.

      ‘It’s lonely, though, isn’t it? That’s what you told me about my childhood, and it sounded like experience.’

      Oh, shit. That was right. I had. In the shower, when he’d told me his father used to keep him isolated. And how he’d always wanted a little sister...

       And you threw it back in his face all those years ago.

      My eyes burned and I was glad I was blindfolded because I had a horrible feeling that I was going to start crying at any moment. Which was ridiculous. He wasn’t doing anything to me that hurt. He was only being gentle.

       You don’t deserve gentleness.

      ‘I wasn’t lonely,’ I said both to him and to the thought. ‘I was fine.’

      He only made a non-committal noise then his hands were on my hips and he was turning me over onto my back.

      I didn’t want to go. At least face-down I had some protection, but there was none while I was on my back. Oh, there was the blindfold hiding my eyes, but he’d be able to read my expression anyway. He was so good at reading people, and me in particular.

      I flung my arm across my face—not that that was any barrier—shivering as I felt his fingers settle at the base of my throat.

      Oh, God. He was going to stroke me again, wasn’t he?

      ‘Of course you were fine.’ He trailed his fingers lightly down my torso. ‘That’s what you always say. But you’re not fine, Poppy. If you were, you wouldn’t mind me touching you like this.’

      I shuddered as his fingertips brushed over my breasts, feeling my nipples get tight and hard. Feeling my soul curl in on itself, trying to protect itself from him and his maddeningly gentle touch.

      ‘I don’t mind.’ I had to force out the words. I had to force myself not to say another word too, the one that I’d never said the whole time I’d been with him.

      Seven.

      ‘Yes, you do.’ His fingers stroked my breasts, tracing their curves, brushing lightly over my nipples and moving down, following the lines of my waist and hips, trailing over my stomach. More flames on my skin, burning.

      ‘Why not, bad girl? Why don’t you like being touched like this?’

      I began to shake, half in helpless desire, half in fear. The blackness behind my blindfold lit up with flashes of pleasure as he stroked down my thighs and I wanted him to take me; to use me hard; to spank me and make me hurt. That was what I wanted. Not this...gentleness. Not this softness I didn’t deserve.

      Because that voice in my head had always whispered the real truth and I had to accept it.

      I didn’t deserve his kindness. I didn’t deserve his gentleness. I’d treated him with nothing but anger and contempt, and I’d done nothing at all to make him change his mind about me.

      Nothing but have sex with him.

      ‘Is that what this is?’ I demanded. ‘This is all about sex, isn’t it? Just because I had sex with you—’

      ‘Hush.’ The word fell across the darkness with so much authority that I fell silent immediately.

      My heart thumped; my breathing was fast. I was a mass of exposed nerve-endings and raw emotions and I’d never felt so vulnerable in all my life.

      ‘It’s not about the sex,’ he said at last. ‘This is about you. You’re hurt, Poppy. You’re wounded. And when a creature is wounded and hurt, they protect themselves. But I’m trying to tell you that you don’t have to protect yourself from me.’ His hands ran down my legs, softly, gently. ‘You’re beautiful, yes, but that’s not all you are. You’re passionate and you feel deeply. You’re protective too. Of your mother and how she’s survived.’

      ‘That’s not true. Not about Mum—’

      ‘Of course it’s true.’ His palms slid back up, long, stroking touches. ‘Why else would you get job after job to help her?’

      I shook my head, denying it. I had to do that for Mum. She was my mother. She didn’t have anyone else. And I owed her after Dad...

      ‘It is true,’ he went on. ‘She gave you nothing and yet you wouldn’t leave her. Plenty of people would.’

      I kept shaking my head and when I felt his mouth on my stomach, brushing more kisses over me, I tried to pull away.

      But he didn’t stop raining kisses on my throat, my shoulders, my breasts and my stomach. As if each part of me deserved to be touched and kissed and stroked and held.

      It was unbearable.

      ‘You shouldn’t do that,’ I whispered raggedly.

      ‘Why not? Give me one good reason.’

      I didn’t want to tell him, didn’t want to give away the truth. But I had nothing left. ‘You’re right. I don’t deserve it.’

      ‘Poppy...’

      ‘My dad died because of me.’

      He went still, his hands resting on me and not moving, and so I went on. ‘I wanted a pony when I was ten. I begged and begged and begged. And Dad said he didn’t have any money, but I wouldn’t listen. I told him that if he didn’t get me one I’d never, ever forgive him. I’d never love him again.’ The words were getting stuck, helpless tears clogging my throat. But I forced myself to keep speaking. ‘So he told me he was going to get me one. Then the next day he killed himself.’

      ‘Poppy.’

      ‘Mum screamed at me. She told me it was my fault for being such a brat. I know I wasn’t directly responsible. I didn’t know we were having money trouble and I didn’t tie that rope around his neck. I know it was his own financial mismanagement that did it. But there’s a part of me that thinks that maybe she was right. If I hadn’t been such a fucking brat, if I hadn’t told him I’d never forgive him, if I hadn’t kept going on at him, he might not have done it. That me begging for a stupid pony was the thing that maybe pushed him over.’ I could feel tears leaking out from underneath the fabric of my blindfold and I wanted to wipe them away, but I didn’t. ‘They didn’t want me anyway. Mum never wanted to get pregnant with me. I was a mistake. A mistake that killed my dad.’

      I let more tears fall and just lay there, naked and exposed, the last horrible little secret echoing in the room around me.

      Selfish and demanding, that was what I was. Wanting things I couldn’t and shouldn’t have. A pony. A mother and father who loved me. A family. A home.

      I was a mistake. I shouldn’t even have been here.

      I didn’t deserve a thing.

       CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

       Xander

      SHE WAS STRETCHED out beneath me, blindfolded. All naked golden curves and pain.

      That pain was like a knife in my goddamned soul.

      The tears leaked from underneath her blindfold, running down her cheeks and her neck, pooling at the base of her throat.

      She thought she’d been the one to push her father over the edge.

      She thought she’d been the one who’d killed him.

       It wasn’t her. It was you.

      The truth, that was what I had to tell her. The truth in all its ugly glory.

      Except how could I do that now? I’d been trying to show her that she could trust me, that she didn’t have to fight me. That right now she was mine and I would care for her,