Rachel Dyken - The Dare

"You're a… politician." Jake made mock quotes. "That basically means it's your job to be nice and make everyone feel confident in your abilities, but I see through the bullshit. I saw through it when you were after Char, and I see through it now. Leave. Her. Alone."

"Or what?" I sneered. Okay, so I wasn't actually going to do anything, but I was pissed they were threatening me.

"Oh that's easy." Travis stepped away, smirking at Jake as if they had this giant-ass secret I wasn't a part of. "You don't leave her alone, and we let you fend for yourself with that one." He pointed back to the cart where Grandma was currently thrusting her phone into the air and yelling.

"I have no service! Damn third-world country!"

I'd last five minutes alone with that woman before committing a federal crime. "Fine, but for your information, I was going to leave her alone anyway."

"Sure you were." Jake rolled his eyes. "That's why you've been staring at her ass for the past ten minutes."

Naturally, my eyes went directly where they weren't supposed to, and I was gifted with another hard slap to the stomach.

"Glad we understand each other." Travis smacked my cheek.

"Shit, you're like Grandma's mafia."

"She'd be one hell of a mob boss." Jake whistled, thrusting his hands into his pockets. "Oh, and by the way, have fun at dinner."

"Damn." Deflated, I watched as the group got on the cart and wandered down to baggage claim, leaving Beth, Grandma, and myself.

"Well!" Grandma clasped her hands. "Isn't this nice! Now, how about that dinner?"

"How long do you plan to keep this up?" the agent asked pointedly.

Grandma grinned and leaned forward over the metal table. "How long do you have, sugar?"

Beth

I was a blubbering idiot. The only explanation I had was PMS or something like it. Char and Kacey enveloped me in a few side hugs and told me men were asses. It helped. Kind of.

I could only assume they'd seen my fallen face and were trying to offer their support in any way possible, which to girls basically meant bashing on the guy in question until the crying girl stopped crying and started joining in.

But I didn't want to join in. Because, regardless of how harsh Jace had been with my feelings — at least he'd been honest.

Honest, I could do. It was the men who lied about who they were that really bothered me. I'd dealt with honest most of my adult life. I could work with it; logically I could explain it.

Maybe it was my hair.

I'd always been told the brown was too dull.

Or possibly my eyes? But, in my opinion, they were really the only thing I had going for me. Dark lashes fanned the emerald green of my eyes, giving them an almost exotic look.

But that was it. No, seriously. It was all I had. My body was normal, not too big, not too small. And I officially sounded like Goldilocks from The Three Bears.

"Was he mean to you?" Char squeezed my hand. She'd always been the type to fight first, ask questions later.

I loved her for it.

"Nah," I lied. "He was a perfect gentleman. Not too bad for a senator."

"Senator my ass," Char hissed. "He's slimy, that one."

"I thought you liked him?" I argued.

"Liked." Char sniffled. "Past tense. I liked him before he stole you away from the wedding reception. I liked him before I found out you were plastered against his naked chest for hours on end. And I liked him before he started staring at your ass as if it held secrets to national security."

"He was staring at my ass?" I asked in a much-too-hopeful voice. Bad Beth. Very bad.

"Not the time, Beth." Char's eyes narrowed. "Remember what happened with Brett? And Steve? And John?"

"Stop naming men from my past before I kill myself," I muttered.

Kacey didn't say anything. She watched our exchange with interest, her mouth turned upward in a smile as she looked between Jace and me.

"He is cute," she finally said.

Um, actually he was a god. No really, ask Marvel Comics.

"Kace…" Char warned. "Cute is for puppies. Not politicians."

"Let's go!" Grandma shouted above the boys fighting and the girls laughing next to me.

"Go get 'em, tiger." Char pinched my butt. "Make him work for it."

"Work for it?" I asked innocently. I had a sneaking suspicion she didn't mean actual work, as in giving him math formulas and solving for Z. But something way harder, like actually trying to be sexy.

Char's answer was to nudge Kacey and laugh. Was I missing something? Shrugging, I summed it up to being overly exhausted and tugged my purse over my arm. Dinner. One dinner. And then I was going to find some Hawaiian man in a loin cloth to rub coconut oil all over me and say big words like electromagnetic and ionic… bummer. I was my own ionic bond. No matter how many times I'd wished I could stick to something, it hadn't happened.

Crap. I had no charge. I so wanted to charge. I needed a charge.

"You okay?" Jace asked, once we fell into step behind Grandma.

"Do I have a charge?"

"Huh?"

"A charge," I repeated.

"Like a card?"

"Like a bond."

"I think I'm confused."

I sighed heavily. "Ionic bonds. They're formed when charged particles stick together. I think I'm chargeless."

Jace's face lit up with humor. "Chargeless, huh? Is that your professional opinion?"

"I'm going to the ladies' room! Damn wine!" Grandma yelled and stomped off, leaving Jace and in the very romantic spot people like to call the wall between the ladies' and men's restrooms. Toilet flushing was our romantic music, and the smell of Mexican food floated through the air.

Again. Clearly I was chargeless.

"So…" Jace leaned against the wall.

"So?"

"Your professional opinion. Is that it? That you have no charge?"

"Yup." Another toilet flushed. Awesome. I almost wanted to cheer for that person. I mean if you can't cheer for someone having a successful bowel movement, really, what can you cheer for?

"Great." He grabbed my arms, pulling me into his embrace. Toilets continued to flush, but I focused my attention on his lips as they moved. "Now, here's mine."

His kiss was tender, elusive. I leaned into him, and I was rewarded for my efforts as his hot mouth pushed harder against mine. Without warning, he pulled back.

"Beth," his hoarse voice washed over my body, giving me chills, "you're looking at it wrong. The problem isn't your damn charge. It's that you don't even realize you had it in the first place. If you don't know what you have, how can you use it? So you want to form an ionic bond? I call bullshit. Why would you want to bond with another person's energy when you have your own? Why bond when you're a continuous spectrum?"

"You used big science words." Right, that's all I had after his speech.

Jace's eyes flashed with amusement. "Sometimes. It happens. I did go to school, you know."

"It was like dirty talk, only hotter." I leaned in closer as his smile grew.

He leaned forward, touching his forehead to mine. "There's more where that came from."

"You called me a continuous spectrum." I grinned, feeling all warm and fuzzy all the way down to my toes.

"It was a compliment."

His lips were so close I could almost taste his peppermint gum.

"I know."

"Beth," he gently pushed me away, "stop worrying about attracting things you don't want to attract." He cleared his throat and ran his hand through his overly long blond hair. Was he referring to himself? Was I attracting him? "Trust me, the right guy will come along, and when he does, it will be amazing. Until then, just keep shining. You're beautiful, you're smart, and you have a lot going for you. Don't let yourself become your worst enemy."

Stunned, I could only stare at him and wish… that's what I was doing. I was willing or wishing him to say screw it and kiss me again. I wanted him to want me, and I hated that I was so weak that I felt like I needed a person of the opposite sex to affirm that I was attractive.

"Well!" Grandma strolled out of the bathroom and swore. "Some people just can't handle dairy products, and that's that!" Her eyes narrowed. "What's going on here?"

"Science lesson." Jace put his arm around me. "A little ionic-bond lesson."

"Damn bonds." Grandma hauled her giant leopard purse over her shoulder and winced. "I'll tell you about bonds. The government makes you buy them, and then you wait years — years, I tell you!"

"And an economics lesson," I added. "What a day."

"I'm a starved lion. And I about croaked in that god-forsaken hellhole they call a bathroom. Let's go." Grandma pointed to the doors and scurried away.

Jace chuckled and followed after her, leaving me trailing behind the two of them. Why did he keep kissing me if he wanted to keep me away? And why did I care? Thor was kissing me. This was cause for celebration not contemplation. But, of course, in true spinster 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.

"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.