If You Dare by Jessica Lemmon Read Free Book Online Page B

slightest bit… He couldn’t believe it.
    Lily McIntire wanted him to kiss her.
    Since Marcus had wanted to kiss her since the day he met her, he was surprised to find his initial reaction was panic. Instead of closing his mouth over hers, he reacted like a kid with a grade school crush…and play-punched her in the shoulder.
    “Hey, I have an idea.” I’ll abruptly change the subject so I don’t maul you where you sit. “You can, uh”—he scratched his neck and averted his eyes—“do my speech for me.” He shrugged and gave her a cocky smile. “You’ll be like a ghostwriter. Only you’ll be a ghost speaker .”
    Wow. What a freaking reach. What was he so nervous about, anyway? How about because the girl of your dreams is coming on to you?
    Yeah, that’d do it.
    The look of longing receded from her expression, and he could see her heart wasn’t in the smile she offered him. He was hit with the strongest twinge of regret.
    She focused on winding the end of the blanket around her fingers. “Well, you earned the award, Marcus. I’m sure everyone there will be—”
    A crash from the kitchen interrupted whatever good-intentioned compliment she’d been about to pay him. She scrambled away from the sound behind her and across the mattress, practically landing in his lap. Her grip on his left forearm was so tight, he’d begun to lose the feeling in his wrist.
    She turned those wide eyes up to him. “What was that?” she asked in a hurried whisper.
    What it sounded like was someone overturning a china cabinet and emptying teacups, dinner plates, and various place settings onto the worn wooden floor.
    Marcus studied the dark doorway in front of them, now silent in the gloom. “I don’t know.” He rested a hand over both of hers and stood. “But I’m going to find out.”
    She stood with him, releasing his arm and moving to hide behind him. He reached around and held her against him, keeping her at his back as he listened, his every sense on high alert. He could hear the wind blowing outside, the propane heater humming quietly at his feet, and Lily’s sharp, short breaths over his shoulder. Other than that, the house was still.
    Lily’s phone chirped and she yipped, clutching the sides of his shirt with her fists. “Sorry.” She let go.
    He turned and faced her. “Wait here.”
    He meant to walk away, but he couldn’t move. The way her strawberry hair framed her cherubic face, the way her plush lips parted, was too tempting to leave behind just yet.
    Marcus gripped her chin between his thumb and forefinger and placed a kiss on the center of her lips. “And calm down.”
    …
    Earth to Lily.
    Marcus disappeared through the doorway of the massive kitchen to confront whomever or whatever was destroying Willow Mansion’s dishware. She knew there wasn’t a single breakable item in there, but she’d heard it too—the creak of the cabinet doors swinging open, the sound of china shattering into a zillion pieces.
    It would make sense if she’d been standing there for several seconds, bathed in the low light of the lantern, terrified out of her mind. Either nonexistent breakables had been shattered or she was in need of a psychiatric evaluation.
    But “terrified” wasn’t her reigning emotion. The predominant feeling was attraction, and it cloaked her in warmth despite the cobwebs and splintered boards at her back.
    Marcus Black was an exceptional kisser. He had firm lips, the bottom one slightly larger than the top. His kiss was no more than a peck, but his mouth had hovered over hers long enough for her to conclude that wine tasted a lot better on his lips than from a red Solo cup.
    Or maybe she was simply afraid. Fear and attraction had a lot of the same characteristics. The sweaty palms, the elevated heart rate.
    Picturing Marcus naked.
    Okay, maybe not that last one.
    Marcus—not naked—appeared in the doorway so suddenly she had to blink him into focus. His face was drawn and shadowed, but her