Page 3 of The Dare

“It was fine,” I said, smiling.

My dad pulled my attention away then, eager to show me a picture of a large bass that he caught when we went fishing just last week.

“The first time out on the lake this spring and look what I got,” he said, making me smile at the way his chest puffed out with pride.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my mom typing out a message on her phone and wondered who she could be texting. Most of the family was here already.

I was still in conversation with my dad ten minutes later when one of my uncles came over to join us. After listening to boring small talk for a while, I finally slipped away. The first floor of the cabin contained all the common spaces. Living room, dining room, and kitchen.

I was thirsty after traveling, so I headed for the kitchen. I rounded the corner and bumped into a large, warm body. I gasped and went stumbling backward, but a pair of strong hands gripped my arms to hold me upright.

I looked up, surprise making my eyebrows pop as I took in the unexpected sight of my brother. I hadn’t seen him come in, and I hadn’t expected him to show up at all.

Atticus hadn’t been to this type of gathering in a few years. He always had the excuse that he was busy with work. He had some high-profile tech job in New York. I didn’t know much about it because I never bothered to learn what he did. We were siblings, but we couldn’t have been more different, and not just because we had a large age gap. I was only seven years old when he went away to college, but even then, I knew he was strange and a bit of a geek. My opinion of him hadn’t improved over the years, and I wasn’t thrilled to see him.

But something strange was happening in my body as I registered just how much hard muscle I’d collided with. Atticus always dressed casually. I guessed that being a tech genius gave him some freedom, and he didn’t have to grow accustomed to suits, but the jeans and loose T-shirts he wore were obviously disguising a more muscular physique than I’d imagined.

Not that I ever imagined what he had going on under his clothes.

I glanced at where he was still holding my arms and saw that he had two full sleeves of tattoos. Of course, my nerdy big brother’s tattoos weren’t anything cool, like badass flaming skulls, obscure tribal designs, or even images of sexy pinup girls.

Nope. Atticus had one sleeve with images from Star Wars and the other was video game characters. The colors were bright, so the art on his skin held my attention for a moment, and I wondered if they were new tattoos or if I’d just never noticed them. I didn’t exactly give the guy my attention.

Why would I? He was a loser.

“Hello, Molly,” he said in his deep voice. That snapped my attention to his face, and I hated that my first thought was that he was hotter than I remembered. He still wore the square, black framed glasses that he’d had forever, but he had a stubble beard now that made him look more manly than the last time I saw him, despite the childish T-shirt he wore with the Batman symbol on the front. His hair was shorter than the last time I saw him too, the black waves replaced with a short buzz cut.

I shook my head as I realized I was checking him out. What the hell was wrong with me?

Coming to my senses, I shoved his hands off of me with a scoff. I stepped around him, giving him a much wider berth than necessary. “Watch it, you fucking weirdo,” I snapped as I strolled to the refrigerator. I grabbed a drink and when I turned back his way, he was gone. Good.

I was halfway through my bottle of water when my phone went off with a text from Olivia telling me she and Jenna were pulling up outside. Heading that way, I noticed Atticus watching me from the corner of the living room. I sent him and dirty look before deciding to just ignore his presence altogether.

Jenna’s teal Jeep was parked in the grass to the side of the driveway that was already full of cars. Both of my friends got out, and I rushed over to give them hugs. The three of us had been as thick as thieves since we were freshman in high school, and we were still close, even though the two of them stayed in our hometown to go to the local community college while I left for New York. We had a group text that we all use every day, and I managed to video chat with them at least twice a week. Still, seeing them in person was different. There was a fuzzy warmth in my chest as I we embraced.

Atticus might have been my brother, but these girls were more like what I wanted from a sibling. They were the sisters that I had never had.

They each grabbed their duffel bags from the back of the Jeep and I led them inside. Grabbing my suitcase, I managed to get past the huge gathering of family members without getting sucked into any conversations. I led the girls to my room, which the three of us would be sharing, and we settled in to catch up before dinner.

Chapter 4

Atticus

The smell of cooked meat filled the house as the caterer arrived. My dad had gone all out, ordering Wagyu steaks and a huge offering of side dishes. There was a two-tiered cake with blue icing and buttercream daisies—my mother’s favorite flower—on the counter in the kitchen, waiting to be brought out at the end of the meal.

I was hungry, having skipped lunch today, but x the moment Molly came down the stairs with her friends, my mind was no longer on food. She’d braided her long brown hair, and my hand clenched with the desire to wrap it around my fist and pull while fucking her from behind.

I sucked in a shuddering breath at the thought and glanced around to make sure that no one was paying attention to me. They weren’t. I was good at blending into the background when I wanted to, something that had come in handy as my interest in Molly increased to the point of stalking.

Which explained why my eyes snapped right back to her as she reached the bottom of the steps. She’d changed out of the jeans and T-shirt that she’d been wearing when she arrived, and I really should have expected that she’d get dressed up for dinner.

Molly loved wearing pretty dresses and took any opportunity she could find to dress up. It drove me crazy sometimes as I watched her going out to parties in her short skirts, drawing the attention of men everywhere she went. She was trouble, even if she didn’t mean to be.

The dress she was wearing now was a little more modest than some others I’d seen her in before, probably because we were at a family event, but my mouth still went dry at the sight of her bare legs on display. The dress fell to mid-thigh, and she was wearing heels that made her legs look longer. The pink dress was darker on the bottom and lightened to a pale pink on top where it hugged her full chest.

Fuck, I loved her curves.

Molly wasn’t a stick figure. She had thick thighs and a soft belly. Her breasts were large, and I longed to feel them in my hands just once.

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