Page 37 of Double Dared
“You’re perfect,” I told him. “I have spare shirts.”
“I stink like smoke.”
“Me too,” I replied. “And I happen to own a perfectly usable shower.”
“Got underwear I can put on?” he teased.
I shrugged. “I bet it wouldn’t be your first time to go commando-style.”
Taylor threw his head back and laughed. “You’re impossible to say no to.”
“What do you mean? You didn’t even try.”
“Fair point. Let’s go, then,” he said.
We managed to say goodbye to everyone before ataxi picked us up. We fell into the back seat with grins on our faces and the stink of spilled beer spreading in the air.
The ride was smooth, though I couldn’t escape this electric feeling between Taylor and me, this sense that something was tugging us one way and the other but was about to give. Something immovable, some ancient boulder, would move an inch and begin a chain reaction of events that would hardly ever stop.
Maybe it was the beer. Light as it was on the alcohol content, I felt like my muscles were looser and my tongue, too.
We stepped out of the car in front of my building, and Taylor followed me up to the door, then into the hallway, and up the stairs to my apartment. As we entered, still quiet and quietly aware of this strange shift happening, I closed the door behind us with a soft thud.
It was evening already, and turning on the lights bathed the living room and Taylor in amber and golden hues, making him look all warm and wonderful.
“A shirt?” he asked.
“Right,” I said, taking my gaze off his face and walking into my bedroom. I found a clean T-shirt and took it back to the living room while Taylor looked around. I watched him stand there, his back turned to me, and I knew with visceral suddenness that I wanted him, wanted him however I could have him. And Iknew, also, that it wasn’t as impossible as I had believed all this time.
See, Taylor had all but said so. He’d come back to me, invited me out, and teased me mercilessly about thinking Kate was of interest to him. He knew the depths of my soul, the secrets in my heart, and the desires I could hardly keep hiding forever.
“Take your shirt off,” I said, fist closing tightly around the T-shirt in my hand.
Taylor turned around and looked at me. “Is it a dare?”
“Does it matter?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “I’m going to do it, anyway.” He reached for the top button and began to undo them in order, revealing more and more of his torso as each button let go.
The sculpted physique, the exquisite lines of his definition, the tan of his olive-warm skin, the golden shadows below his muscles, and the cheeky look on his face as he shrugged the shirt off to reveal the broad, round shoulders all made me stop.
His shirt fell on the floor as my gaze followed it. It rose then, along the denim of his pants, to the brown belt, and then the narrow waist, moving over his Apollo’s belt, over the thin, dark hair of his happy trail, and along his abs.
“And the shirt?” Taylor asked.
My gaze snapped to his face, and I saw it, all of it, glimmering with amusement. He knew he was being watched, options were being weighed, and his worthwas being assessed. But that wasn’t entirely true. I knew his worth already. I knew it from the night he’d danced in this very room. So I moved the shirt behind my back. “No.”
One side of his mouth lifted. “You know, I had a feeling you might do that.”
“And I have a feeling I’m being dared,” I said, taking a step toward him.
“Preposterous,” he said, but he took a step toward me, too.
“Tell me,” I said. “Plainly. Simply.”
“Nothing’s plain, Harrison. It couldn’t be less simple.”
“Tell me anyway.”
