Page 6 of Daring the Bad Boy

It was a dare, plain and simple. And one she would never have taken in normal circumstances – despite her Valentine’s Day phobia and whatever Tash had to say about the healing powers of hot hook-up sex.

She simply wasn’t the spontaneous type. Or the type to kiss random strangers in bars. No matter how hot the stranger, or how irresistible he became when he smiled.

But then something inside her shifted.

Maybe it was the many sparkling pink penises bobbing in her peripheral vision. Or the knowledge that Tash and Imo were watching her every move and expecting her to chicken out. Or possibly even the dutch courage afforded by four – make that three and a bit – strawberry daiquiris. Or maybe it was simply the flicker of sadness she’d detected in those delicious chocolate eyes that made her want to be bold and reckless too. Instead of serious and safe and depressingly predictable.

But whatever it was, she heard herself say, “I’m not sure you can handle one of my kisses.”

That would be the other her. The her who had always wanted to be daring enough to kiss a hot stranger in a bar but never had.

He lifted his hand to touch her bottom lip with his thumb. The barely there pressure slid across her flesh and reaction sizzled through her entire body.

“I’ll risk it, for a taste of that mouth.” His deep voice brushed over her skin like a caress. And he cupped the back of her neck, turning the sizzles into shockwaves.

Heck, shock-tsunamis.

He lowered his mouth to hers, holding her in place. “Kiss me,” he said, his eyes locked on hers. “I dare you.”

The bar noise and Rod’s growling drifted away, drowned out by the thundering beat of her heart.

She rested her hands on his shoulders to steady herself. Strength rippled beneath the soft leather, spurring her on, as his hands lifted into her hair to cradle her head and angle it, just so.

But he waited, for her to lift up on tiptoe and close the distance between them to touch her mouth to his.

He licked across the seam of her lips, demanding entry, and she opened for him instinctively. The thundering beat became a roar as his hands swept down to her hips and his tongue took control of the kiss, directing it into dark delicious danger.

Her lungs squeezed, and her skin tightened, as their tongues tangled in a hungry dance. She plastered herself against him, rubbing her aching breasts against the rock solid wall of muscle beneath his T-shirt. Large hands settled on her butt to grind her against the ridge in his jeans.

Chu-ching! Tash was right. He felt huge, and indomitable and tasted of stout and spice and pure unadulterated need.

He drew back, his lust-blown pupils turning the hot chocolate to dark rum, his breathing as uneven as hers. The roar in her ears became deafening, until she realized the hen party were giving them a round of applause.

The girl standing behind him with a Bride-to-Be sash and a plastic tiara stuck jauntily on her head shrieked. “Go for it, luv!”

“You want to get out of here?” The husky request issued against her ear, rumbled up her spine, detonating a series of conflicting emotions en route. Panic and shock, but most of all bone-deep longing.

This badass stranger wanted her. And she wanted him. She’d never been kissed like that before in her entire life. And had never kissed anyone back like that either. Without holding a single thing back. Especially not in public.

“My place is in Clerkenwell…” His hands roamed over her butt, the firm pressure sending a smile through her system. “If you want to take this further? Somewhere private?” His lips quirked in a smile that was both wicked and ironic and unbearably sexy.

Her heart sunk into her abdomen to party with her raging hormones.

“I can’t believe that cheesy chat-up line actually worked,” she said, struggling to clear a path through the fog of endorphins. She didn’t know this guy from Adam, however incredible his kissing technique. And however promising the enormous bulge in his jeans.

“It wasn’t the pick-up line. It’s that amazing mouth.” His gaze got fixated on her lips, the longing unmistakable. “Is it classified as a WMD? Because it ought to be.”

She laughed. His palms moved up her back with a possessiveness that was even hotter than his smile. Or that bulge. The endorphins fogging up everything now but the clear thought that she wanted to kiss him some more. A lot more.

Fuck sensible.

What was she waiting for? Why was she trying to argue herself out of a good time? Why overcomplicate this?

She was a grown woman with needs and desires that hadn’t been met in a year. Even longer than that if you factored in Vince’s tiny dick and aversion to giving head. All she wanted was some hot fun to cure her V-Day curse. And what better person to do it with than a guy who could kiss her senseless… And might well have a V-Day curse of his own?

This is so not complicated.

“How about it?” He dragged her closer, butting his hips ag