Triple Dare

Oh, Lordy. The mellow note had returned to his voice, once again causing the strings of interest to vibrate deep within her belly. She muted them quickly and tugged her hand from his grasp, turning to the sink to scrub the lingering heat from her fingers along with the dust from her boxes. Fortunately, Mrs. Laurens had left a bottle of liquid soap behind and Abby used that to help with the sterilizing part of her efforts. Abby caught the rustle of fabric as she reached for the last of the paper towels the elderly woman had left as well. Dare had obviously decided to remove the jacket to his tux. By the time she returned to that steady gaze and surprisingly still-snowy shirt, her nerves were firmly under control.

Or so she’d thought.

Sweet mercy. She stared. Shamelessly.

Two weeks ago and forty feet away, the man’s chest had been ogle-worthy. Tonight, less than twelve inches away, it was downright riveting. The slightly crushed cotton of Dare’s shirt enhanced every inch of his broad shoulders, thick, sinewy arms and fiercely honed chest—right down to the silk cummerbund banded about his waist. She followed the line of studs back to his loosened tie and the tantalizing V of flesh at the base of his throat. Flesh that still bore the slight sheen of his unorthodox exertion.

And his scent.

This close, it was impossible to evade. Not that she wanted to. Abby savored the earthy musk drifting into her lungs. No ripe, commercial colognes for this man. Dare’s natural scent reflected his looks—dark and dangerous. Her second, slower whiff clogged in the middle of her throat as he cleared his. Expectantly.

She blushed.

Great. The man peeped into her window and she ended up pegged as the pervert. She purged his musk from her lungs along with her embarrassment, focusing instead on that sluggish, scarlet trickle as she stepped closer. Most of the blood appeared to have been soaked up by the dark waves that spilled past his right temple. She dumped the first-aid kit on the counter and smoothed the hair from his face.

He must have prepped himself better this time, because he managed to keep from stiffening.

She couldn’t. “Oh my.”

His brow lifted. The motion caused several fresh drops of blood to seep from the two-inch gash she’d located just past his temple. She wasn’t a doctor, but even she knew the cut required more than a Band-Aid.

“You need stitches.”

Unlike earlier in her bedroom, he offered no argument. Nor did he downplay her assessment. He simply shook his head.

Firmly.

Abby studied the thin scar running the length of his outer right cheek and jaw, the one on his bottom lip. Neither showed evidence of stitches. She wouldn’t be able to change his mind, then. Might as well do what she could. Popping open the first-aid kit, she rummaged through her meager supplies, culling a bottle of antibacterial wash, half a dozen squares of sterile gauze and her stash of slim butterfly bandages. She washed the gash as best she could, then used all seven of the butterfly strips to seal the slightly jagged edges together. Satisfied the strips would hold, she dampened the remaining squares of gauze with the antiseptic wash, then used the pads to clean the remaining blood from Dare’s cheek.

The end result was surprisingly neat.

“There.” She pitched the last of the gauze on the counter as he lifted his fingers to probe his cut.

Bandaged or not, that gash had to hurt.

She nodded to her kit. “I’m sorry. There should be a packet of ibuprofen in there but it’s gone. I must have used it up before I moved.”

“That’s okay. You’ve done enough as it is. I appreciate all your help…and your concern.”

She glanced at her watch as he stood, stunned as she realized he’d been there for nearly half an hour. It had felt like five minutes, ten tops. Even more disconcerting was that she was reluctant to see him go. She risked a teasing smile as he pushed the stool against the counter. “Glad to help. Just promise you’ll take the elevator, okay? I’m out of bandages.”

His lips actually quirked, then eased into a slow, mesmerizing smile. Somewhere along the way, she stopped breathing. She’d forgotten how.

She had the distinct impression Dare knew it.

To her disappointment, his smile faded. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it. The haunted look that had struck her so deeply when she’d first spotted it in the doorway of her bedroom returned. His gaze seemed almost guarded now. He seemed guarded—against her. But that didn’t make sense. What reason did he have to be threatened by her? They hadn’t even met until tonight. Not really. Was it his head? Did it hurt worse than he’d said?

It must. Not only had his mood shifted, she could almost feel the energy draining out of him. He’d paled, too. “Look, why don’t you sit back down?” She tipped her chin toward the breakfast counter and the forest of cardboard still cluttering the living room beyond. “It shouldn’t take me more than a few minutes to locate the rest of my medical supplies. There’s bound to be a bottle of ibuprofen in the mix.”

“Thank you, but no. I have somewhere I need to be.”

At this hour?

She swallowed her disbelief. Nutcase or not, she did not want the man leaving until she was sure he wouldn’t pass out in the elevator—whether he was headed the one floor up or seventeen down. She tried teasing again. “Let me guess, you turn into a pumpkin at midnight.”

This time, his lips didn’t quirk. If anything, he became more guarded. “Something like that.”

Disappointment seared in—so swiftly, she was forced to admit she was attracted to the man. But even if he was attracted to her, time limits meant only one thing. A woman. Wherever his apartment was located, there was a woman waiting inside it. Girlfriend, fiancé, wife—it didn’t matter. She had no intention of playing second fiddle to anyone or anything ever again. Abby held fast to her resolve as Dare retrieved his jacket. She followed him out of the kitchen and around the boxes she had no idea how she was going to get rid of once they were empty and joined him in the apartment’s tiny foyer. She unlocked both security bolts and opened the door.

Dare stepped into the dimly lit hall—and hesitated.

To her surprise, he turned back.

That haunted looked was not a figment of her imagination. It was real and it had returned. But damned if she could figure out what was causing it, much less the resignation that had crept in as well. Dare retrieved an ivory-colored business card from the inner pocket of his tux and held it out. “Put the boxes in the hall when you finish unpacking. Then call and leave a message on my machine. I’ll have them removed.”

She reached out, instinctively taking the card and skimming it. Two lines in, she stopped. Forced herself to reread. Not the phone number…the address. Dare lived upstairs all right. All the way up. She snapped her gaze to his, not even bothering to disguise the fury blistering in.

“You live in the penthouse?”

The haunting in his eyes intensified.

She didn’t care. She no longer wondered what was behind it, either. She was too busy absorbing the shock. Two days after Greta Laurens had offered to sell her the apartment—and the very morning after she’d brought her brother by to make sure Brian also loved it—an unnamed resident had decided to exercise an obscure clause in Tristan Court’s antiquated homeowners’ agreement, one originally scripted by blue bloods at the turn of the century to keep so-called common folk from buying in. Abby received a formal, humiliating summons to appear before the building’s residents’ board, ostensibly to determine if she was suitable neighbor material. Though the board hadn’t come out and said it, she knew darn well the color of her blood hadn’t been the issue, but the genetic makeup of the rest of her cells.

Or rather, her brother’s.

But that wasn’t the worst of it.

This man—who hadn’t even bothered to show up for that humiliating meeting—had instigated the entire, ugly mess. She didn’t care if Dare had withdrawn his reservations by the time the board met, she should have left him clinging to the side of their building where she’d found him. Unfortunately, it was too late to rectify her mistake now. She did the next best thing. She slammed the door in his face.

Chapter 2

Zeno Corza pocketed the compact binoculars he’d lifted from a pawnshop the night he’d hit town. Though his mark had already entered the apartment building, Zeno didn’t cross the darkened street. Nor did he retrieve his cell phone and call in. It wasn’t that he had nothing new to report.

He did.

But for all the boss’s big words and bigger ideas, the guy wouldn’t understand a change in plans, even a small one. He was too stuck on things going down his way. Well, the boss was also supposed to be big on results, too. Zeno was about to grab a couple of those. The brilliance of it was that he didn’t have to stick out his own hand. All he had to do was tap an old acquaintance on the shoulder. Remind a certain someone that in the end, everyone’s dirty little secrets leaked out.

Zeno clenched his fingers. The boss was wrong. He had brawn and brains.

Finesse.

Hell, after that fiasco in Chicago a couple of months ago, it wouldn’t be hard to prove. Especially since New York was Zeno Corza’s turf. Sure, he’d been busted while distributing his white-powder wares in the projects across town a couple years back—but he’d been smart enough to develop and then cash in a lucrative marker before his case even went to court, hadn’t he? Zeno craned his neck toward the upper floors of the Tristan, grinning as the bank of windows he’d spent the better part of the past few days casing lit up. Time to retrieve his cell phone. Put his new and improved mission into motion. Prove to the boss for once and for all he was ready to move up in the organization.

And if the boss was right and he didn’t have a way with words?

Well, there was always Sally.

Anticipation hummed in Zeno as he fingered the meticulously honed blade sheathed at the waist of his trousers. He’d named the old knife after the faithless bitch who’d once sworn to stick with him for life. In a way, she had. Part of her. After all these years, the blade’s wooden handle still carried the stain of Sally’s blood. Ironic when he thought about it.