Page 29 of Daring the Bad Boy

“Has it got something to do with a guy?” he asked, his grip tightening on the lens as he sharpened the focus and captured the furrow creasing her brow.

“See how predictable I am?” she said.

“You’re still stalling,” he said and waited for her to come clean.

She lifted her shoulders in a stiff shrug. “My boyfriend and I split up a year ago on Valentine’s Day.” The words came out in a rush, her blush radioactive now.

The kick of envy surprised him enough to have him following up with a question he would never usually ask. “And you still have feelings for this guy?” Cal already hated him.

Why the hell had he started this damn game again?

“God, no. Vince was a dick. He was cheating on me while living in my flat and leaving shaving gunk in my sink.”

Relief washed through Cal. Relief and something that felt akin to fury. If he ever met Vince the Dick he was going to kick the guy’s butt. Was he the reason why she seemed so unsure of herself half the time?

“I

just…” She hesitated again. “I just wish I hadn’t gotten so invested in him. In us. When there was no us.”

He lowered the camera. The hurt on her face made him feel inadequate. He didn’t know what the hell to tell her. He’d never even had a live-in girlfriend. His career involved so much travelling, a lot of it last-minute, it just didn’t lend itself to that sort of commitment. After the initial spark of lust had expired, it had always been easier just to move on, before anyone got the wrong idea. So he was the last person to hand out relationship advice. And he didn’t have a lot of practice at handling this kind of conversation either. In fact he had virtually zero, because before now he’d always wanted to run for the hills when women asked him to deal with this shit.

But she looked so lost. He wanted to give her something.

“We all make mistakes,” he said. “You should never dwell on them. It makes more sense to look forward than back.” It was a theory he’d lived by ever since he’d gotten the hell out of West Daley. Weird how it suddenly felt like the easy answer now, instead of the honest one.

She wrapped the sheet tighter and looked at him out of those guileless eyes. “Have you?”

“Have I what?”

“Ever made a mistake like that?”

He lifted the camera, shielding himself from that searching look. “Nope. But only because I’ve never lived with anyone.”

“What, never?” He captured her shocked expression in the viewfinder, clicked the shutter. But as he congratulated himself on the composition, her stunned reaction made him feel uncomfortable. And somehow less.

“Not my scene,” he said. “I do a lot of travelling.” But the excuse sounded false even to him now.

“But don’t you ever get lonely?”

“Nope,” he said, but he knew that wasn’t true either. Not now, and certainly not yesterday evening.

He reached forward to hook his finger over the sheet. Ready to refocus this discussion on something more tangible, something that wouldn’t freak him out so much. “You ready to loosen it a little?” he asked, gratified when her pulse quickened under his fingertip and she relaxed her grip.

“Truth or Dare?” she said.

“Huh?” he said, the atmosphere so charged with endorphins now it was a struggle for him to focus on anything but those full breasts, and the tight peaks visible beneath the sheet.

“Truth or Dare, Cal? It’s my turn.”

“Dare,” he said reluctantly. Her teeth tugged at her lip, as she made a decision about what to dare him. His cock rose, along with his anticipation – the rush of blood to his groin inevitable when he focused the lens on that incredible mouth.

“I dare you to tell me why you were so sad last night? And don’t lie and say you weren’t.”

He stopped shooting. Shit, he’d walked straight into that one.

He could have refused to answer the question. Called foul. This game was supposed to be cute and sexy, not deep and meaningful. But how could he? When she’d been so damn open and forthright with him?

“My old man died a week ago. I’d just got home from organizing his affairs Stateside, getting him cremated. So I wasn’t in the mood for a bar full of bachelorettes on a bender.”

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