The Dare - Elle Kennedy Page 0,63

hanging out of her mouth. A punk rock PhD. She’s very attractive, her eyes and hair the same shade as Taylor’s. But her features are sharper—high cheekbones, a delicate chin. Not to mention, tall and runway-model thin. I can understand where Taylor gets some of her insecurities.

“There was this one time…” Brenna starts in again, and I tune her out, my gaze sliding to Taylor.

She has no reason to feel insecure. She’s gorgeous. I don’t know, sometimes I just look at her and it hits me all over again. How hot she makes me, how badly I want her.

My hand’s still in her lap, and suddenly I’m acutely aware that we didn’t get any time to fool around before I picked her up for dinner because we both had homework to finish and she was running a little behind getting ready.

I inch my hand up, just a little. Taylor doesn’t look at me, doesn’t flinch. Her thighs squeeze together. At first, I think I’ve overstepped, but then…she spreads them. Inviting my hand to roam higher.

Brenna is spinning some embellished bullshit about her internship at ESPN and some fight that broke out among a couple of the football commentators, keeping the parents entertained, while my fingers wander under the hem of Taylor’s skirt. I’m careful, methodical. Taking care not to make myself conspicuous.

As Brenna makes grand hand gestures and rattles the table with her story, my fingertips brush the fabric of Taylor’s panties. Silk and lace. Jesus, that’s so hot. She shivers, just a little, under my touch.

Swallowing the saliva that suddenly fills my mouth, I slide my palm over her covered pussy and holy fuck I can feel how wet she is through her underwear. I want to slip my fingers inside and—

I yank my hand back when the waiter suddenly appears and places the check on the table.

As everyone jumps into the dance of fighting for the bill. I sneak a peek at Taylor to see her eyes glinting with mischief. I don’t know how she does it, but this girl constantly finds ways to surprise me. Letting me feel her up under the table isn’t something I thought I’d find in her playbook, but I love that this side of her exists.

“Thank you,” she says after we’ve all said goodnight and are heading for our respective vehicles.

“For what?” My tone is a bit husky.

“Being here for me.” Gripping my arm as we walk to the Jeep, she gets up on her toes to kiss me. “Now let’s go back to my place and finish what you started in the restaurant.”

24

Taylor

On Sunday morning, while Conor’s out with the guys helping Coach Jensen get his kitchen in order, I do laundry and clean my own disaster of an apartment. It tends to be that the deeper into the semester it gets, the more my habitat starts to resemble the harried chaos shuffling around in my head.

When my phone rings, I drop the fitted sheet I’m struggling to fold, grinning to myself. I don’t even have to check the screen to know who it is. I knew this call was coming, and I knew it would happen this morning. Because my mother is the most predictable person on the planet and basically it went down like this: after driving back to Cambridge Saturday afternoon, she would’ve stayed up reading and grading papers with a glass of wine, then gotten up this morning to start her own laundry and vacuum, all the while rehearsing in her head how this conversation would go.

“Hey, Mom,” I say, answering the phone and plopping down on the couch.

She gets right to the point with a soft opening: “Well, that was some dinner.”

And I politely laugh in agreement and say, well, it wasn’t boring.

Then she agrees and says, good spring rolls, too. We’ll have to go back to that place.

So for two minutes we’re just stuck in a ping-pong match of platitudes about pad thai and plum wine until Mom works up the nerve to finally ask, “What did you think of Chad?”

How did this happen to us?

“He’s nice,” I reply. Because it’s the truth and reassuring enough. “He seems cool, I guess. And Conor says good things about him, so that’s something. How’s his hand?”

“Not too serious. It’ll heal in a few weeks.”

I hate this. Neither of us saying what we mean to say—that I don’t know how to like the guy my mother is dating, and that she, in turn, will be broken-hearted if Chad