Dare to Resist (a Wedding Dare novella) (Entangled Brazen) (3 page)

Kady stepped out of her waterlogged heels, but then didn’t know what to do with herself. The rain drummed on the roof loud enough to compete with the
whirr
of the air-conditioning unit, which chilled her wet blouse and made her shiver. What she really wanted was a hot shower, but given the odd tension hanging in the air like a fog, she thought it might be a little early to start getting naked. “Well,” she said, shoving away the thought of Colton totally bared to her eyes. “I think I’ll check some email and return some calls.”

Colton ran his hand through his hair. “Yeah. Me, too. No doubt my in-box has exploded in the last eight hours.”

Taking a seat at the table, Kady smiled as she unpacked her laptop. “Guess that’s what happens when you’re the boss man, huh?” Two years ago, he’d opened his own computer security services firm in Boulder and immediately won contracts working with the military and defense contractors who prized his experience with the army’s Cyber Command both in the States and while deployed on field teams overseas. Truth be told, Kady envied the autonomy he had working for himself.

“Like you wouldn’t believe. But I haven’t found anyone I want to take on as a partner, yet.” With a sigh, he grabbed his laptop bag and settled into the chair across from her. A flash of lightning threw shadows over the table for a moment. “I brought a surge protector if you want to plug into that,” he said.

“That’s so awesome I’m not even going to crack a Boy Scout joke. This storm is crazy.”

Colton gave her a droll smile. “Your restraint is unparalleled.”

Ha! You have no idea, Colton. I’m trapped in a tiny room with the only man I know who’s capable of giving me an orgasm and I haven’t jumped him.
Kady smiled to herself as she bent under the table to plug in her power cord, then she set up her laptop and hot spot and logged in to her firm’s network. She ran through a few easy emails and peeked over the top of her screen at her roommate. Brow furrowed in concentration, his brown eyes moved as if he were reading. She watched him for a moment, struck by the fact that it was…kinda nice to be sitting here working with him like this.

Though they did the same kind of work and saw each other at conferences and occasionally when competing for contracts, like today, it had been years since they’d actually worked on anything together. One of the first times had been when he’d come home to her house with Tyler for Thanksgiving his sophomore year in college. His parents’ marriage had been a total train wreck and Colton and his sister, Sophie, had never seemed like their first priority, so occasionally the Brooks siblings would end up at the Dresco house for a holiday meal. Kady’s mom loved hosting them both, and having Sophie around, even as shy as she was, gave Kady someone to hang with besides the annoying boys.

But that particular Thanksgiving, Colton had been entirely stressed out over a final project on network protection. Curious what college-level computer assignments might look like, Kady had sneaked into Tyler’s room when Colton had taken a break and looked over his materials. He hadn’t been happy when he’d caught her going through his notes until she made a few suggestions that helped him solve his research problem. They’d worked on it together the rest of that night.

His gaze cut to hers. “Why are you watching me?”

Busted. Kady ducked her chin to hide the heat filling her face. “Pfft. Get over yourself. I’m not watching you.” Her fingers flew over the keyboard as she answered another email.

“Uh-huh. I think you missed me, Dresco,” he said, that old arrogance filling his tone.

She tossed an eye roll his way. “That would be like missing my dentist. Totally never happens.” Another chill set her to shivering. She wished Colton’s coat was dry enough to be warm, but that was going to take a while. So she went to the bathroom and grabbed one of the towels to wrap around her shoulders. Examining herself in the bathroom mirror, she looked kinda ridiculous and her hair was a wavy disaster, but at least she was warmer.

Colton’s gaze tracked her as soon as she returned to the main room. “You that cold?” he asked with a frown.

“It’s fine.”

“She says as her teeth chatter.” He pushed the top button of his dress shirt through the hole and worked downward.

She couldn’t tear her gaze away. “What are you—”

“I’m gonna turn on the heat long enough to dry my button-down. Then it’s all yours.”

“Really, I’m fine,” she managed as he shrugged off the white cotton and revealed a V-neck T-shirt that did absolutely nothing to hide the contours of his muscles. Helpless to stop herself, her gaze traced over the definition of his chest, his stomach, his shoulders, his biceps. The man was cut to such perfection that it made Kady want to trace every dip and curve with her fingertips. Just to see if he was as hard as he looked. Heat lanced through her blood.

“You don’t get to be a thirty-two-year-old man without learning that when a woman says she’s fine, she’s really not.” He arched a brow that challenged her to disagree.

She smirked but kept her mouth shut because, on the one hand, he was right. And on the other, his rightness made her want to ask where that kind of wisdom had been three years ago when he’d been a total ass.

In a quick series of movements, Colton adjusted the thermostat, moved the table out from in front of the window, and draped his shirt over the back of his chair to dry. Sitting again, he scooted his chair closer to the stream of warm air rising up from the vent.

“Well, thanks,” Kady said, settling back into her chair. First the coat, then offering her his room, now the shirt. Since Tyler was often around when she and Colton saw each other, she wasn’t used to him stepping up to take care of her like this. Not that she was the kind of woman who needed taking care of all the time, but who didn’t admire and appreciate a well-placed chivalrous gesture? Kindness was sexy.

Peering over his laptop at her, he winked. “That’s twice in one day.”

Leave it to Colton not to quit while he was ahead. “Don’t count on a third.”

His eyebrows raised in an expression of challenge. “I bet I can make you say thank you at least one more time today.”

The words “I bet” froze Kady’s fingers where they sat on her keyboard. She’d always had a hard time ignoring those words, especially when they came out of his mouth, as they often had over the years. And he knew it. She met his gaze and arched her brow. “The stakes?”

He tilted his head, his eyes narrowing. “Breakfast at the diner. You thank me, you buy. You don’t, I buy.”

Kady shrugged. This was gonna be easy as pancakes. “Why not? A new contract and free breakfast. I think I like the desert.”

“Contract isn’t yours yet,” he said, giving her a hard stare. “And neither is breakfast.”

She tugged the towel tighter around her shoulders. “Just a matter of time,” she said.

He shook his head as if in exasperation, but the corners of his eyes crinkled. “Bet starts now. I think I’ll eat a light dinner tonight so I’m extra hungry for breakfast.”

Kady bit back a grin. “You’re ridiculous. You know that, right?”

“Maybe. But you like me.”

Kady inhaled to respond, but she was saved by the bell. Or rather, by the vibration of her cell phone against the veneer of the table. Her stomach dropped at the name on the caller ID. Bob Chase, her immediate supervisor at Resnick. “Hello, this is Kady Dresco.”

“I thought you were going to be back in time for the site visit with Carson tomorrow,” Bob said without as much as a hello. The fact that she’d gone over his head to propose going after the project at this Panther Canyon facility had significantly moved her name up on his shit list. When she’d gotten the tip about the request for proposals here, Kady had known she couldn’t go through Bob with it. He’d either block her effort or take credit for the find—or both. So she’d gone to Mr. Resnick directly with full awareness doing so would earn Bob’s ire. But she’d decided it was worth the risk, and she’d been right. Resnick had been impressed enough by her identifying the job and her proposal for it that he’d given her the green light to bid as the project manager—which meant landing the contract was in essence a promotion. To not have to work for Bob Chase would be a dream come true… “If you can’t…commitments on smaller projects, how do you think…to manage bigger ones like this boondoggle you’re on…?”

Despite the weak cell service, Kady got the gist of Bob’s tirade. And she wasn’t really surprised. But boondoggle? Seriously? Was it 1953? Kady sucked down the snark and made nice. “I understand, Bob. And I apologize. There’s a terrible storm here and the airport canceled—”

“None of which would’ve been a problem…stayed at the office,” he barked.

Anger settled into Kady’s chest and a multitude of responses rushed to the tip of her tongue. Like, reminding him how lucrative this contract could be, because the initial systems they wanted were just the start of a potentially long-term relationship with this facility and others like it. Like, that Resnick had given Kady his permission and blessing to be here. Or even, just maybe, that he was a giant hemorrhoid. “I understand,” she said instead, forcing some sugar into her tone. “But fortunately, Carson was fine rescheduling for Friday afternoon, which actually worked better with his schedule.”

Apparently deciding to ignore the most important point of their conversation—the client was actually happier with the new meeting time—Bob plowed on. “Why can’t you rent a car so that you can…this meeting?”

A
click
sounded from across the table, and Kady looked up to find that Colton had closed his laptop and sat staring at her. No, scowling. And clearly listening in.

Ugh. She’d been so intent on handling Bob that she’d momentarily forgotten she wasn’t having this conversation in private. She got up from the chair, crossed the room, and closed herself in the bathroom. The last impression she ever wanted Colton Brooks to have of her was that she couldn’t hold her own in this field—in any and every manner.

What part of “terrible storm” don’t you understand?
she thought, as she fought to hang on to her composure. “I wish I could,” she said in a tone you might use with a pouty toddler. “But there’s literally nothing here. The nearest car rental is at the airport, which I can’t get to.”

“Something you have to learn when you’re a program manager is how to manage competing time commitments. If you can’t, I’ll reassign Carson’s project,” he said.
Click
.

“Asshole!” she whispered as she braced her hands on the counter. She forced a deep breath. “He doesn’t matter. None of that matters. Because you’ll get the contract and then you’ll be out from under him.” She nodded, the pep talk releasing some of the tension in her shoulders.

Facing the door, Kady straightened her spine and relaxed her expression. She didn’t want Colton to think the call had ruffled her feathers in the least. Flicking the light switch off, she opened the door and smacked face-first into six foot two inches of hard masculine flesh.

Chapter Three

Hands braced on either side of the doorjamb, Colton stared down at Kady. God, she was a little thing. But lush, with sexy, feminine curves—the feeling of which was now emblazoned all down the front of his body from where she’d just walked into him.

“What was that about?” he asked, the heat of anger stirring in his gut. Someone had been hassling her.

“Oh,” she said with a shrug that was supposed to come off as nonchalant. “Just work, you know.”

“No, Kady. I don’t know, which is why I’m asking.” He was well aware that she had to deal with a lot of bullshit from the men she worked with and competed against. The whole computer field—from programming to security to games—was male-dominated and somewhat proudly chauvinistic. Colton didn’t agree with it in the slightest, but that didn’t make it any less true. And for someone like
her
? Who was not only brilliant at the work but feminine and beautiful and sharp-tongued? Yeah, she dealt with more than her fair share of it.

“Bob was just worried about a meeting I had scheduled tomorrow, that’s all,” she said.

And now Colton was getting pissed for a new reason. Kady was lying to him. “Bob Chase is a tool,” he said. “And he was hassling you about something over which you have no control, cutting you off, and generally, from what I could hear of your side of the conversation, being a pretentious, overbearing blowhard.”

She shrugged again. “Pretty much. No biggie.”

Except that wasn’t true, either. Colton had known this woman for more than fifteen years. He knew her facial expressions, intonations, and body language—though, admittedly, not as well as he wished he could. And right now, the cast of her eyes, furrow of her brow, and curl of her shoulders all read that the call had upset her. And that combined with the fact that she wasn’t being straight with him made him a little crazy. “Why did you go in the bathroom to finish the call?”

“Just trying not to disturb you,” she said.

He stepped closer, so close they were almost touching. “You are so full of crap right now. You know that?”

Blowing out a breath, she retreated into the darkness of the small room and leaned her butt against the counter. Crossing her arms, she said, “Wow. You might want to brush up on how to win friends and influence people, Colton.”

He hit the light and followed her into the space. “Don’t deflect.”

Her green eyes flashed at him. “Why are you pushing me on this right now?”

“Because I don’t like to see someone I care about getting treated like shit, especially not by someone in a position of seniority at their job.”
It sure as shit would never happen in my firm
. When she dropped her gaze to the floor, he bent down enough to force their eyes to meet. “How bad is it?”

“It’s the same old BS. And nothing I can’t handle.” She looked to the side.

He caught her chin in his fingers and tilted her head to force her to look at him. “I know you can handle it, Kady. I just hate that you’re in the position of having to in the first place.” Maybe he could help. But how? A quick array of emotions flashed through her eyes. Colton frowned. “But why are you hiding it from me?”

“I’m not—”

He arched a brow, calling bullshit on her response before she’d fully voiced it. And the fact that she’d eaten the words proved he was right.

She gently wrapped her hand around his, gave it a squeeze, and pulled it away from her face. For a moment, Colton reveled in the warmth of her skin touching his even as his body registered the gentleness and was once again reminded of just why he could never have her the way he wanted. But if he couldn’t have her in his bed and under his body, then he’d sure as hell do right by her
and
his best friend and protect her. Defend her. Stand up for her. Not because she needed him to do it. Not because she wasn’t capable of doing it herself. But because it was the right thing to do.

And something deep down inside demanded it of him, too.

She dropped his hand and hugged herself again. “Look, I’m going to say this, and you’re not going to let it make things weird. Okay?”

A sliver of dread snaked around his spine. He nodded.

Kady heaved a deep breath, like she was bolstering her resolve. Then she met his eye. “You have looked at me as a little kid my whole life. And I get it. For a part of that time, I
was
a little kid. I’m six years younger and your best friend’s little sister. When you were graduating college and entering the army, I was just learning to drive. By the time
I
was graduating college, you had a career and had fought in wars.” She rubbed her hands over her biceps as if she were trying to warm herself. Colton jammed his hands in his pockets to keep from helping.

Between his ears, the horrible foot-in-mouth things he’d said to her that night in the pool house rattled around—words he’d said because he’d freaked out about the very things she was talking about right now. But the dismissive and insensitive load he’d dumped all over her that night had just been a pack of lies. Fact was, Colton had seen her go in the pool house moments before. He’d sought her out. And he’d known she’d had a crush on him for pretty much ever.

Thing was, by the time she’d hit her junior year of high school, he’d been crushing a little bit himself. His head saw the age difference, but his heart only saw someone who shared his interests, who could teach him things, and who made him
feel
. And the attraction only grew as he’d come home on leave and seen her, each time growing more and more into a woman. At his welcome-home party, she’d been beautiful and confident and so damn sexy that every rationale Colton had ever had for keeping his damn hands off had flown right out the window.

In truth, when he’d retreated from her that night after Tyler had interrupted what had been one of the hottest make-out sessions of his life—mostly because it involved the woman standing in front of him—Colton had been the one deflecting. Big time. Because his only other option was to give in to what he wanted.

Kady sighed. “I’m not that little kid anymore, Colton—”

“I know.”

“Do you?” she asked, peering up at him. She blinked away and shook her head. “Our age difference isn’t as meaningful as it was when we were younger, so I need you to see me as your peer, as your equal. Not as a little kid or a little sister who needs to be coddled or protected. I don’t need you to worry about me or intercede in anything professional for me. In fact, if you ever did, it would just make things worse. In this field, I have to work twice as hard and be twice as creative to get half the respect. So I keep my complaints to myself and ignore as much of the bullshit as I can because otherwise it’ll make me crazy and distract me from what’s important, which is the work. Which I love. And I’m damn good at it, too.”

“Yes, you are,” he said without thinking. But some things were so true they didn’t require thought. They just
were
. Anybody would be lucky to have Kady Dresco on their team, so Bob— His thoughts froze midstream. Anybody
would
be lucky to have Kady on their team…including him.

That thought was like a revelation, opening doors and windows inside his mind and making him wonder why the hell he’d never had this thought before. Because Kady would be an amazing partner—competent, brilliant, skilled, creative. She’d be the kind of person you could count on to get her shit done without needing oversight and to collaborate and brainstorm in a way that made everyone’s work better. Exactly what he needed. Though, for sure, the idea of working with her wasn’t without its complications.

Forcing away that question, Colton released a long breath. Not only was she right in this situation, she’d been right three years ago, too. He hadn’t seen the real her. He hadn’t seen a strong, independent woman. He did now, though. In spades. Damn if it didn’t make her even more appealing.

“Okay. You’re right. Though my gut instinct is to beat down any asshole who harasses you, I know you’re tough enough to handle it and I’d never want to make things worse. But if you ever want my help—with anything—all you have to do is ask. And if you ever want to blow off steam, I’m here to listen.” He pressed his lips into a line, hoping she wouldn’t turn this into a joke per their norm, because this was important to him.

She stared at him as if evaluating his offer, and the seriousness in her expression mirrored what he felt in his gut. The pounding drumbeat of the rain on the roof above them drowned out all other sound, giving the moment an almost suspended quality. “Okay. I’ll try,” she finally said. “But I’m used to holding all this in, so it’s not easy. I don’t like to be seen as weak or incompetent.”

Satisfaction roared through him at her serious reply. He felt like something important was happening here, something real, something—for once—not hidden behind layers of snark and humor. Colton didn’t have anything real or even particularly meaningful with a woman—nor had he ever before. And that made what was happening between them right now stand out.

Not that he didn’t have plenty of opportunities for casual encounters with women interested in dabbling in the rougher stuff with him, but none that made him want something more, something deeper, something
real
. Mostly, that was a good thing, because his parents’ miserable marriage had seriously damaged his belief in the institution. His mother excelled in passive-aggressiveness and guilt trips, while his father was a master of actual aggression and yelling. Most of the time, they’d directed their venom at each other, but he and his sister Sophie had gotten caught in the cross fire plenty of times. Even after his parents had divorced and his father had moved to Tennessee, Colton had continued to get trapped in the middle of their disputes during the summers he spent there. If it hadn’t been for his good friends Reed and Brock, those summers in Tennessee would’ve been miserable. So, Colton hadn’t even been eighteen before he vowed he’d
never
spend even a minute as an adult putting himself in the situation he’d been forced to live through as a kid.

His gaze scanned over Kady’s beautiful face. The woman standing in front of him was the
only
woman who’d ever inspired Colton to consider anything more than a one-night stand or being fuck buddies, and that made Kady both incredibly dangerous to his world order and one of the most important people in it.

“I don’t see you that way. Not even a little,” he said. Allowing himself the pleasure of her skin, he brushed his knuckles down her cheek. So fucking soft.

Her head tilted into his hand and she smirked up at him, one eyebrow arched.

“Okay, ‘little’ was a bad choice of words, wasn’t it?” he said, cupping her cheekbone in his palm and running his fingers into the edge of her hair.

She nodded, but the smile that played around her mouth made it clear she’d understood his intent. Licking her lips, she stared up at him.

Arousal shot like an arrow through Colton’s body, spiking his pulse and sending blood south. As if Kady picked up on the shift in his mood, her lips parted and her skin flushed where he still held her. The air suddenly crackled with heat and tension and promise.

Colton’s gaze zeroed in on her mouth, and an urgent need had him wanting—no,
needing
—to taste her. To claim her. To devour her. Without telling his body to move, he leaned down and his fingers slid into the silk of her hair. He met her gaze and he nearly roared in victory when she tilted her head back to receive him. Closer. And closer yet.

Her fingers fell on his lips. Her eyes bored into his, the beautiful green filled with desire and something else. Challenge? Determination?

“Don’t do this unless you mean it, Colton,” she said in a voice so low the beat of the rain nearly drowned it out.

The words pierced through his desire and kick-started the thinking part of his brain.
Unless you mean it
. Colton froze. What would “meaning it” mean to Kady? Something intentional. Something that might go somewhere. Something serious.

Regret and longing settled like an anvil on his shoulders. He slowly dropped his hand from her hair and pulled back. Need throbbed through his body, but his heart protested the lost promise of this moment even louder. Because he knew with Kady, sex would never just be about bodies and actions, it would be about feeling, connecting, sharing.

Kady was tough and brilliant, and she was also a happily-ever-after, two-point-four-kids, white-picket-fence kind of woman. Unlike his, her parents’ marriage had been fantastic, and the Dresco house had served as a home away from home more than once for him and his sister Sophie. So Colton totally got why Kady would want the same. More than that, she deserved it. Which meant she deserved more than him.

“Like I said”—Kady’s voice jolted him from his thoughts—“let’s not let this conversation make things weird. Okay? I just needed to say that stuff.”

He nodded. “Right. Of course,” he said. Did she hear the grit in his voice? And what would she think it meant if she did?

She gave him a small smile and stepped around him, opening a clear path between him and his reflection.

Colton looked himself in the eye.
Could you give a relationship a meaningful try for her?
he asked his mirror image.

His gut gave a squeeze of alarm at the thought, not because of the idea of being with her, but because nothing he’d seen growing up had taught him how to be a good half of a whole. And he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he gave her anything less than the happy future she deserved.

And that wasn’t the only question worth considering.

Could you dial the roughness down for her?

Another squeeze. Not really. He’d had “regular” sex before, and it could get him off. But no way he could
only
have regular sex. Something in him required the release of aggression that rough sex gave him. And for him, it was so much
more
…exciting, satisfying, fulfilling.

He couldn’t change. Not this. And trying probably wouldn’t serve his cause, either—instead, it was likely to create the same kind of tension and conflict that had cracked the foundation of his parents’ marriage and slowly but surely rotted everything from the inside out.