If She Dares (Contemporary Romance) Read online

  By the time he headed down the hallway, she was already in the elevator. The doors were starting to close, but Jack had long legs. He threw his arm between the sliding metal, and the doors obligingly rebounded.

  He beamed at her. “Hello again.”

  In return, she muttered a sharp expletive. Apparently, this particular female had missed the memo about how all women adored him. Her clear blue eyes narrowed for a moment, but then she ducked her gaze. Too bad. She had beautiful eyes. Beautiful everything. If anyone had asked his preference before now, he probably would have said he liked women with long hair. But his neighbor’s super-short style suited her. It gave her an edgy appearance while still highlighting delicate, feminine features.

  And you’re staring. Not the best way to convince her he wasn’t some creepy parking-lot lurker.

  “Sorry if my friends and I made a lot of noise with the furniture today,” he said as the elevator doors slid shut. “I’m mostly moved in, so it should be quiet from now on—although, I have been known to throw the occasional Halloween bash. As my neighbor, you would be invited, of course.”

  She didn’t respond for a moment, and he wondered if she planned to ignore him for the entire descent. That would make for a paradoxically long four stories down.

  But then she raised her head, glancing in his general direction while not quite meeting his eyes. “There’s actually a building-wide party, but I don’t—” The overhead lights flickered once, twice, before going out completely as the elevator dropped a few feet, then jerked to an abrupt halt.

  2

  THE LURCHING ELEVATOR knocked Riley into the wall, and she dropped her box of files and receipts. A gasp of surprise escaped her—a really loud gasp. Or, if she was being honest with herself, a shriek.

  “You okay?” Jack asked.

  The dark was so absolute that she couldn’t see him, and fear clutched her. She was trapped in here with him. Take a deep breath. He isn’t going to hurt you. Yet her fingers shook as she fumbled for her smartphone, and her heart didn’t slow from its breakneck gallop until the light of her phone’s screen pierced the blackness.

  Jack was frowning at her with concern, probably because she’d squealed in terror at something as basic as a power outage. “Are you claustrophobic?” he asked. Despite his kind tone, the question made her defensive.

  “No! I’m not afraid of small spaces.” Are you sure? Lately, she seemed to be afraid of everything. In a quieter voice, she admitted, “I’m not crazy about the dark.”

  “No judgment here. We all have our phobias.”

  As a kid at sleepovers, she’d been the one who always suggested killing the lights and telling scary stories. I miss that kid. After the night she’d walked in on her house being robbed, she’d spent the next few evenings with every possible light on, determined never again to be ambushed by a man from the shadows. How long would her makeshift flashlight last? She’d talked to a number of clients today and had planned to charge her cell phone while she was driving.

  Glancing down, she checked the phone’s battery power. Almost to the red zone.

  “Got any bars?” Jack asked.

  She shook her head. “I learned months ago it’s next to impossible to get a signal in here. My mom’s been cut off twice.” Her lips twitched at the memory of a phone call last week and how she’d evaded her mother’s latest attempt at matchmaking. “On the plus side, whenever I want to end a conversation, I just say I’m getting on the elevator.”

  “Useful tip. I’ll be sure to keep it in mind.”

  “Hey!” A man’s booming voice came from above. “Jack? You okay in there?”

  “We’re fine,” Jack called back. To Riley he said, “That’s Tony, one of my police buddies.”

  “Pretty sure your whole building just lost power,” Tony reported. “If the elevator’s not moving, I guess there’s no backup generator. Want me to call the fire department?”

  Jack darted a glance in Riley’s direction, as if assessing her panic level. She gave him a weak smile.

  “The fire department can get us out,” he told her, “but this would be a low-priority call for them. Depending on what other outages or accidents have been caused by the storm, we may have to wait a little bit.”

  “Understandable.” She mentally crossed her fingers that the power would kick back on any second now.

  While Jack continued his conversation through the ceiling, she sat down, her back to the wall and her denim-clad legs stretched out in front of her. There was a lid on the old printer paper box she’d been carrying, and luckily none of her paperwork had spilled.

  After Tony returned to Jack’s apartment, her new neighbor sat across from her, flashing a grin that brightened the darkness even more than her phone. “Since we’re crisis buddies, don’t you think I should know your name?”

  “I’m Riley. Riley Kendrick.” The other people in the building probably just called her The Hermit in 4-C.

  “Nice to meet you. Officially.”

  Her cheeks heated as she recalled their last encounter. She turned off her phone’s screen to preserve the battery. If shutting down the phone also kept Jack from seeing her blush, well...that was a bonus.

  “I apologize for the way I overreacted the other night,” she said. “Rainstorms make me jumpy.” Rainstorms, the dark, the sound of pipes settling, her own shadow. She’d spooked herself a few weeks ago when she’d caught movement from the corner of her eye. Her heart rate had tripled before she realized it was her reflection in the mirrored closet door.

  If she did go to the tenant Halloween party in a couple of weeks, at least she knew what her costume should be—the Cowardly Lion. A frustrated noise caught in her throat, not quite a growl, but damn close.

  “Riley?” Jack’s voice was rich with humor. “Please tell me that was you. Otherwise, we may be sharing the elevator with something not human.”

  “Just me, snarling in exasperation.”

  “About the power outage stalling you? Were you in a hurry to get somewhere?”

  “Actually, I was headed to see my accountant.”

  “On a Saturday evening?”

  “Well. He’s also my brother-in-law.” The middle Kendrick sister, Rochelle, was the only one married. She’d met her husband while they were both getting their MBAs.

  Rochelle had once said that, of the three sisters, Riley was the perfect blend of traits. “Wren’s paintings are fabulous, when she bothers to finish them, but she’s flighty as hell. I have a brain like a calculator, but no imagination. With your web design, you balance creativity and content management. Plus, you’re braver than Wren and me put together.”

  Before, maybe.

  She sighed, letting her head fall back against the wall. “I’m not exasperated because I’m running late. I’m exasperated with myself.” For all that she wouldn’t have chosen to be in the dark, not being able to see more than Jack’s basic outline was liberating. It was easier to be candid when you didn’t have to meet a person’s gaze. “I’ve become quite the scaredy-cat lately.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up over your little scream earlier. Most people would be alarmed by their elevator taking a sudden dip then stopping dead.”

  Her lips tugged in a reluctant smile. “Shouldn’t the first rule between crisis buddies be not using words like dead?”

  “Good point.”

  A moment passed, and she admitted, “It’s not just the elevator falling that made me jumpy. Or even you coming around the corner the other night. A year ago, before I moved here, I... Sorry. I don’t normally treat neighbors like therapists.”

  There was a rustle of movement, and she could tell he was sitting straighter, his demeanor alert. “Like I have anything else occupying my time right now? Besides, I’m a good listener. Coaxing details from people is a big part of
my job.”

  She had no intention of reliving the gritty details, but maybe reaching a point where she could calmly summarize what had happened was part of healing. “The short version is, I was supposed to go away for a long weekend with my sisters but turned back because of weather delays. Unfortunately, I walked into my house midburglary. I wasn’t really hurt,” she said in a rush, trying not to imagine all the ways it could have been worse, “but it left me...shaken.”

  “Of course it did.” His voice was soft and sympathetic.

  Had she given another person reason to see her as a victim? She hated the worry that lined her parents’ faces whenever they looked at her. “I’m totally fine,” she said, playing fast and loose with the definition of fine. “I just miss the old me. Do you have any siblings?”

  “Nope.”

  “I’m the oldest of three sisters, and growing up, everyone called me the daring one. Or, if they were feeling less charitable, the troublemaker. Now I don’t even have the backbone to cross a parking lot without imagining the bogeyman, or to stand up to the president of the tenant board.”

  “That would be Mrs. Tyler?” His tone was the vocal equivalent of a shudder. “I met her. She may actually be the bogeyman.”

  “Yeah, she does put the ty in tyrant.” Over the summer, it had crossed Riley’s mind that she might feel safer if she bought a dog, even just a small one; since she worked at home, it wasn’t as though it would be cooped up alone all day. When she’d petitioned the three-member board about getting a pet, as per building policy, Anna Tyler had reacted with the same civic outrage as if Riley had proposed starting a meth lab.

  But Riley’s problem was a lot bigger than an unpleasant tenant board president. “I want to feel like myself again. I want to do something spontaneous, maybe even reckless! Like...” She cast about for an example, trying to remember the carefree way she’d once looked at life. “Like jump naked into the pool!”

  His sharp intake of breath reverberated in the stillness.

  What am I doing? Her new neighbor was more than a self-proclaimed good listener, he was also a very attractive and virile man. Mention of getting naked could lead to some awkward hallway encounters. “I don’t know why I said that.”

  “It was a spontaneous declaration. So, good on you.”

  She tried to amuse herself by imagining the scandalized expression on Mrs. Tyler’s face if tenants took to skinny-dipping. But it was impossible to picture the well-coiffed dictator’s outrage when Riley’s mind was focused on the man in the elevator, mere feet from her. The dark, which had seemed confessional in an anonymous and cozy sort of way, was beginning to foster an illusion of intimacy. Riley hadn’t dated much in the last year, despite her mother’s efforts. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d felt this pull of connection to a man.

  “I’ve been skinny-dipping,” Jack volunteered.

  The uncooperative imagination that hadn’t wanted to supply a picture of Mrs. Tyler looking appalled was perfectly happy to speculate on Jack Reed in his full glory. Though his chiseled face gave him a lean appearance, before the power had gone out, she’d gotten a good look at his muscular arms in that T-shirt. Not bulky, but sculpted. If the rest of him— Stop that!

  She cleared her throat, hoping she didn’t sound as breathless as she felt. “Given your work with law enforcement, I assume this exhibitionism was on private property, where you weren’t breaking any public decency ordinances?”

  “It was at summer camp. I was fourteen and had spent the week flirting with a gorgeous and worldly fifteen-year-old. She suggested a midnight swim, minus our bathing suits. Which would have been the most romantic night of my young life if she and her giggling friends hadn’t run off with my clothes. My skinny-dipping was followed by streaking through camp, swearing a string of profanities the likes of which Camp Kinahoopee has probably never heard before or since.”

  She laughed. “Skinny-dipping, streaking and cursing? You rebel child.”

  “What about you? You hinted that you made plenty of trouble in your day.”

  “Contrary to what my poor mother probably believes, I rarely set out with specific intent to break any rules. I just loved anything that made me feel alive and exhilarated—like roller coasters and going off the highest diving board in the county.” And having sex her freshman year of college in her boyfriend’s convertible with the top down. Warmth spread through her again, but this time it wasn’t all embarrassment. A distant, disobedient part of her wondered what kind of car Jack drove. “I have always been a sucker for a double dare, which led to my involvement in a plot to steal our rival school’s mascot when I was sixteen. We returned it after homecoming.”

  He chuckled. “Honor among thieves?”

  “Honor, and the threat of expulsion. When I was eleven, a kid in our subdivision dared me to race my bike down Dead Man’s Hill with no helmet. I wiped out at the bottom, still have a faint scar midthigh, but what I remember most is the indescribable rush of freedom. The wind whipping against my face, the sense that I was flying.” When was the last time she’d felt so giddy and uninhibited? “I don’t remember the pain at all. Probably because I knocked myself unconscious when I flipped over the handlebars. Is it weird that I thought the concussion was worth it?”

  “A little bit, yeah. Although maybe I’m not qualified to answer that, since I’ve never had a concussion. I did, however, court expulsion in high school.”

  “Ooh, kindred spirit. Do tell.”

  “I organized a student protest against the school dress code.”

  “Did you protest it by streaking?” she teased.

  “No, but if I’d thought I could talk any of the cheerleaders into that...” A wicked smile tinged his voice when he added, “I may or may not have persuaded the captain of the cheerleading squad into a one-on-one game of strip poker the summer after graduation. How about you, troublemaker? Any strip poker games in your past?”

  “Yes, but...”

  “But?”

  “I’m not very good.” By nature, she was an expressive, forthright person. The ability to bluff eluded her.

  “Maybe you just need practice.” That wicked tone was far more potent this time because he wasn’t talking about hypothetical cheerleaders from his adolescence. He was talking about her.

  In that moment she might actually have worked up the nerve to ask if he was volunteering to coach, but an ominous groan sounded. The elevator creaked as if it could no longer hold their weight suspended. Then the lights blinked on, momentarily disorienting her, and back out again.

  “Seems like the power’s trying to come ba-aaah.” Her last word turned into more of a yelp as the elevator dropped. It only lasted a moment; they might not have cleared a full floor, but it was a far different experience than the normal, controlled descent. When this is over, I am strictly a staircase girl.

  Jack scooted closer to her, stopping when his hand encountered her calf. He gave her a reassuring squeeze. Not counting hugs from her dad, the last few times a man had touched her she’d reflexively flinched away. At the moment she didn’t mind the contact. Maybe because she was preoccupied by the prospect of plunging to her death.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Um. Sure.” And the award for least convincing goes to...

  “What about shoplifting?” he blurted, clearly trying to distract her from any elevator-plummeting anxiety. “Ever steal anything during your misspent youth?”

  “A friend dared me once. I went into a drugstore, wondering if I had it in me to palm a pack of gum, but I got distracted by the cute cashier and left with his number instead. My friend joked that I stole the guy’s heart and thus fulfilled my dare.” The elevator rattled again, and she had the juvenile urge to close her eyes—as if that would change anything. She was proud of herself for sounding calm when she asked, “Ever done a keg stand?�
�

  He laughed. “Do people actually do those in real life? I thought it was just the kind of thing you see in movies about fraternities. Have you ever—”

  The elevator lurched, and she instinctively reached for Jack’s hand. Sparks of awareness slipped past the wall of anxiety. It was starting to get really warm in the still air. Heat pulsed in parts of her body she hadn’t given much thought to lately. Rather than flinch away from the sensation, she found herself trying to cling to it.

  Her voice sounded raspier than usual when she prompted, “Your turn to ask a question.”

  “Ever kissed a stranger in the dark?”

  3

  THE QUESTION HADN’T been premeditated. Jack had set out to distract her, not make a move. But his once-noble intentions were muddled by the tantalizing mental image of her losing at strip poker—and by proximity to Riley and her lush curves. Her soft fingers were still wrapped around his, and their legs were practically entangled.

  “N-no.” The husky catch in her voice was sexy as hell. “I’ve never done that.”

  I dare you. The words shimmered in his mind like an incantation. If he said them, would she accept the challenge? Not that he would exploit the situation. And yet, had she just moved closer?

  He inhaled the faint scent of raspberry lotion on her skin and wondered irrationally if she tasted like raspberries, too. He could feel the heat from her body and, as he angled his head toward hers, her breath feathered over him. Releasing her hand, he skated his fingers up the satiny flesh of her inner arm, within grazing distance of her generous breasts.

  Which is when the lights buzzed back to life in what felt like a burst of accusation.

  Riley’s eyes were wide, and her gaze dropped to his mouth. There was desire in her expression—but it was accompanied by apprehension, which kept him from leaning forward and kissing her. She abruptly pulled away, and Jack called himself a litany of names, dumb ass being the kindest. What in the hell had he been thinking? Hadn’t he learned his lesson about getting involved with women who lived in the same building?