Free DARE: A Bad Boy Romance by Carmen Faye Page A

unlike Trey, and maybe this Finn, Dare Bowden seemed to have emerged relatively cool and collected on the other side. At least that was her impression.
     
    She wouldn’t be here with him otherwise.
     
    “Want to change the subject? That’s cool,” she said.
     
    “Well, maybe it’s best kept for another time. Old wounds and all that. How about you? Family and friends in L.A.? You were born here, right?”
     
    “Uh-huh. Blue collar all the way. Dad spent most of his career on passenger trains. He was a Big O, and proud of it.”
     
    “What’s that?”
     
    “A train conductor. He busted his ass on the railway till he retired a couple of years back. Mom started out as a Beanery Queen—a dining car waitress—that’s where she met Dad. Later she taught netball part-time. I’ve got a younger brother up in Oregon, and an older sister, Jenny, who lives over at Faircrest Heights.”
     
    “Who were you closest to growing up?”
     
    “Jenn. Always Jenn. She’s looked out for me since day one. I don’t see as much as much of her as I used to—You-Know-Who likes to drag me along— liked to drag me along.” Holly gave her own head a knock. “I’ve gotta start thinking past tense.”
     
    Dare finished his drink, walked over as smooth as you like, and took her by the hand. It felt coarse—coarse but warm, safe, and dangerous at the same time. It reminded her that this was a man who’d killed for his country, for all the other guys in that photograph. He fought for what he believed in, just like that night when he’d intervened in the ring. And he fought for what he wanted, as he’d told her that day in the café.
     
    It all added up to one thing: he wanted her.
     
    The flutter in her stomach and the sudden rapid thump in her chest left her incredibly uncertain but dying to find out what might happen next.
     
    The insecurity gripped her first, and she blurted out: “You don’t have a girlfriend, do you?”
     
    “No.”
     
    “You’re not just saying that?”
     
    He seemed amused by the line of questioning. “There’s no other girl, I promise.”
     
    “That’s good. I just thought, with you being so high profile and all…”
     
    “And in the top five of…whatever that list was you checked out.”
     
    “The most eligible bachelors in MMA,” she said. “Together with pictures of the celebrities they’ve dated.”
     
    “I don’t date celebrities.”
     
    “Oh? Why not?”
     
    He smiled. “But I could always call one up if you wanted. There’s bound to be directory hotline for lonely on-call celebrities.”
     
    Holly gave him a soft, goofy punch to the arm. “I think you do have one. I think all you guys do.”
     
    “Touché. And you?” he asked. “I know you said you haven’t dated anyone else since high school. But have you ever been propositioned by a celebrity? At one of those million-and-one functions he’d made you attend with him?”
     
    “Who? Me?”
     
    “Uh-huh.” He caressed her cheek with his hand that suddenly didn’t feel coarse or dangerous anymore. It felt lovely.
     
    “I think you’ve mistaken me for the bling brigade,” she said. “Those tramps get hit on all the time. I reckon they swap partners like they swap gossip.”
     
    “The bling brigade, huh.” He put his huge arm around her, dwarfing her. When he touched her waist through the thin silk of her dress, she knew there was no going back. He was going to have her, and she wanted him to. “I like it,” he said. “You can see ‘em coming a mile off. They’re so…obvious.”
     
    Holly glanced down at her breasts, then realized what he was still talking about. “Oh, yeah! I know, right? Sometimes it’s rougher ringside than it is in the ring. Wives and girlfriends…WAGs…can be vicious, I’m telling you.”
     
    “But you haven’t answered my question.” His cologne intoxicated her—that and the deep timbre of his words. “Have you ever been hit on by a celebrity?”
     
    She