Free The Dare by Rachel van Dyken Page A

fashion, all I could do was focus on the fact that
he'd told me I was a spectrum, and sadly that was one of the nicest
thing any man had ever said to me.

Chapter Ten
     
    "Ma'am, what does Justin Timberlake have to
do with anything?"
    "Justin Timberlake is the answer to
everything," Grandma said solemnly.
    "How do you figure?"
    After a long pause she answered, "Because he
brought sexy back."
    "I'm sorry I didn't take a sick day
today."
     
    Jace
     
    So I'd kissed her twice. Big deal. I licked
my lips for probably the twentieth time, hoping, no praying, that
I'd still be able to taste her on the tip of my tongue. Damn, she
tasted good. I couldn't get her smell or her taste out of my
consciousness, and I really needed to be focusing on important
things like trying to get my career on track, rather than flushing
it down a shit hole.
    With a haggard groan, I licked my lips. One
last time. Just to remember.
    How many times had I kissed a woman and
experienced nothing?
    Shameful, to admit when a man is so
ridiculously turned off by the female species that he stops
responding all together. That's what Kerry had done to me. She'd
broken me. And I hated feeling like a broken misused toy that no
longer functioned properly. It pissed me off and made me feel like
less of a man.
    But Beth? She made me feel alive. Too bad the
things that make you feel alive eventually kill you. Drugs,
alcohol, bungee jumping. Okay, fine. I was being dramatic, but
still. Women were predators. They couldn't help but want to trap
men and eventually destroy the relationship in the process. Maybe
it was fear, but I imagined it was so much deeper than that.
    Arranged marriage. That was my future. At
least in an arranged marriage I could pull the strings, I could use
it for my benefit. I'd have the perfect little senator-wife and I'd
have my dream.
    The only problem? The longer I spent with
Beth and that damn grandmother, the more reality was pushed away
from the forefront of my mind. I needed to get back to the
mainland, and I needed to call Rick. Beth made me lose focus.
    I never imagined myself a romantic. That
dream had been killed over ten years ago. I was so young and
stupid, naïve to think that Beth would remember the magic of our
kiss. The magic of the moment we'd shared. I'd fallen
head-over–heels. In exactly three minutes, I'd had our wedding
planned, while she hadn't been able to wait to get away.
    When I'd told Grandma Nadine I'd help get
Jake and Char together, never in my wildest dreams had I thought
that I'd get pulled into the Titus-family drama. And not once, had
I thought I'd end up in bed with Char's sister. Especially after
all those years wishing for that very thing.
    I stole a glance at her.
    She was beautiful. But I was surrounded by
beautiful women, and none of them, not a single one, made me want
to fight.
    She did.
    And it made me pissed as hell that I had
somehow given her that type of emotional power over me. I'd done it
once with Kerry, let my guard down and found her in bed with my
best friend. But even with Kerry, I hadn't felt the sizzle I'd felt
with Beth.
    Which was terrifying. Because if it was this
easy for me to want to be with her, then that meant she had that
much more power to destroy me, and the sad part was, I'd probably
let her, because even though I wanted to be that guy that was tough
as shit and didn't give a damn.
    I'd always known that once I fell for someone — once I fell in love, it would destroy me
from the inside out. My mom had always joked that I wore my heart
on my sleeve. In my profession it helped. People genuinely trusted
me. They liked me. And in return, I tried to do my best for
them.
    Them. I needed to keep remembering what I'd
been born to do. Lead others and sacrifice. At least, at the end of
the day, I'd still have my job. Logistics, voting, politics, they
were topics that, given the chance, would take over a person's
life, leaving no space for anything else. I needed my life to be
that way in