Page 83 of Dare Me

“Wait!” she cried before her door closed. “I need my key and the chocolate.”

It was pointless to argue, so he opened his door and put his bag inside while he waited for her.

And waited.

And waited.

“Ari? Is everything okay?”

When she finally reappeared, she was wearing nothing but a deep purple lace bra with matching panties and a sexy grin. On bare feet, she sashayed toward him, swinging the shopping bag from Ghirardelli. “Sorry that took so long,” she said breathlessly. “I wanted to slip into something more comfortable.”

As she made her way up the stairs to his loft, he noticed the panties were actually a thong.

And he couldn’t wait to help her slip out of them.

Chapter Thirteen

It was a little after eight the next morning and Arianna snuggled closer to Will and hummed with contentment. Last night, she should have told him about her conversation with her brother, but they were really trying to discuss her family as little as possible. Plus, she didn’t want to ruin the mood by talking about the very thing that had caused their argument in the first place.

Maybe this morning over breakfast she could bring it up and then they could plan how to just sort of…come out of the secret closet.

In her mind, she envisioned them just either showing up at one of the big Donovan Sunday dinners together at her parents’ house or one of their many get-togethers at the pub. Either would work and if they walked in hand-in-hand and simply announced that they were together, then maybe it would be okay. Liam had seemed pretty cool with all of it and didn’t freak out nearly as much as she thought he would.

True, he had no idea that she was actually talking about Will, but…

“It’s too early for you to be thinking so hard,” Will murmured before rolling her under him and kissing her.

When he lifted his head and gave her a sleepy smile, she couldn’t help but smile back. “How did you know I was thinking?”

“Because you kept getting more and more tense.”

“Maybe I was thinking about you and everything we did last night?”

The look he gave her told her he didn’t believe her one bit.

“Okay, fine. But it’s nothing I want to talk about right now because you’re right, it’s too early.” Wrapping her arms around him, she pulled him in close. “And I’d much rather start our day out like this.” Pressing her lips to his, she gently coaxed him into the kiss and prayed he wouldn’t push to know what she was thinking about.

And it must have worked, because he didn’t bring it up again for a long, long time.

It was nine in the morning and there were other things Patrick Donovan needed to be doing other than chasing his little sister down. Glancing down at the papers in his hand as he climbed the stairs to the fourth floor, he wondered how this had fallen through the cracks.

But he already knew the answer.

His assistant.

And they didn’t fall through the cracks because she was bad at her job. On the contrary, she knew exactly what she was doing and helped Arianna lease this apartment without letting him know because she knew how much he didn’t want to be involved in that particular matter.

Unfortunately, once he found the lease, he wanted to know why his sister went behind his back like this. His plan had beento call her, but he drove past the complex every morning on his way to work and he spotted her car, so…here he was.

When he finally got to the fourth floor, he paused and huffed out a breath. “Why would anyone willingly move to this floor when there was no elevator?” Groaning, he wiped the sweat off his brow and walked down the hall to her apartment and knocked on the door.

He checked his watch and considered texting her in case she was in the shower or something just to alert her that he was here, but he heard someone coming and turned.

Liam.

The two exchanged confused looks before Liam spoke.

“Dude, what are you doing here?”

---