The Dare: A Steamy Standalone Instalove Romance Read online

  The Dare

  AN OLDER MAN YOUNGER WOMAN ROMANCE

  _______________________

  A MAN WHO KNOWS WHAT HE WANTS, 272

  FLORA FERRARI

  Contents

  NEWSLETTER

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  Extended Epilogue

  Extended Epilogue

  NEWSLETTER

  A MAN WHO KNOWS WHAT HE WANTS

  BRATVA BEAR SHIFTERS

  LAIRDS & LADIES

  RUSSIAN UNDERWORLD

  IRISH WOLF SHIFTERS

  Collaborations

  About the Author

  The Dare

  Natasha

  They dared me to do it.

  Ask an older man to kiss me, full on the lips. Like they do in the movies.

  Well, maybe not exactly like they do it in the movies.

  My mom wasn’t that keen on the idea, but my best friend Suzanna? She and I have a lot to catch up on during my trip home from college.

  A little adventurous train ride on account of my fear of flying.

  I’ve missed both mom and Suze like crazy, but playing truth or dare?

  Should seem childish. It is childish, but I’m not one to back out of a dare.

  Especially once I see the older man I’m supposed to ask for a kiss.

  At first, I think no way. I’ll make a complete fool of myself.

  But once he lays eyes on me though, it’s like a light goes on. And a feeling comes over me that I’ve never felt before.

  Truth or dare?

  The truth is I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat.

  Nothing less.

  Michael

  The train was my idea, the vacation to nowhere wasn’t.

  I needed a break, but I have to wonder, a break from what exactly?

  My whole life’s a vacation.

  Almost.

  I’m not the richest guy in the world, but I'm fairly comfortable.

  I’ve got everything I need and plenty to spare, but there’s just one thing missing.

  Someone special to share it all with.

  The train’s almost empty, and I have first class all to myself.

  Like all the other fine things I have, I can only seem to enjoy them by myself it seems.

  Until I see her.

  I meet her in the strangest way. The most amazing way I could imagine.

  Looking back, kissing her so soon after we meet isn’t the first thing I want to do.

  But it’s the most innocent thing we could get away with in public.

  Dared to kiss an older man?

  It doesn’t feel like she thinks it’s a bad idea, and if I had another few minutes alone with her, I know I could persuade her to do a lot more.

  It’s a long train ride, but I’m already thinking about my future.

  Our future.

  A future we can share together, forever.

  No dare required.

  * The Dare is an insta-everything standalone instalove romance with a HEA, no cheating, and no cliffhanger.

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  Chapter One

  Natasha

  “Truth or dare?” Suzanna asks me. Her eyes narrow with intensity but her creeping smile gives her away.

  I roll my eyes, sighing loud, trying to be annoyed with my best friend.

  “Suze. We’ve played eye-spy, counted railway crossings and now you wanna keep up with truth or dare?” I ask, hearing my voice move up to a steady whine.

  Long haul, cross-country train rides aren’t my idea of fun.

  Oh wait, this was my idea.

  Short airplane flights in cattle class are a thousand times worse for me, so my trip home from college had to be land-based travel only.

  I thought a train trek with my mom and best friend would be something we’d remember for the rest of our lives.

  Like a mini-vacation.

  Romantic even.

  I think we’ll remember, but maybe not for the right reasons if Suze insists on playing dumb games the whole way.

  “Truth or dare?” Suzanna says again, impassive. Ignoring my attempts to get out of it playing this game.

  I try to growl in frustration, but Suze’s face is so funny, so serious that I just have to laugh.

  In no time, we’re both laughing like maniacs without even knowing why.

  I’ve never had so much fun with Suzanna as on this trip home and it’s still only our first day.

  I’ve missed seeing her every day for four years but she’s still my bestie.

  Always will be, no matter what.

  Just when it feels like she’s gonna start up again with truth or dare, I hear my mom coming back into the railcar lounge we’re hanging out in for the afternoon.

  Train travel isn’t popular anymore, or maybe we just got lucky. But we have what looks like a whole car to the three of us so far, and the sleeper is just us too by the looks.

  It feels like we have the whole train to ourselves, but mom, who likes to explore, tells us both otherwise.

  There are other people on the train, but not many. One, in particular, she starts to mention, but blushes.

  “You see something you liked?” Suzanna teases my mom, but I let her.

  Anything to get me out of another round of truth or dare is fine with me.

  Mom laughs, still blushing.

  “Oh no, Suze… You know I’m on my way to patching things up with Neil,” she says with a dreamy look.

  Neil is my dad.

  When he was there that is.

  All three of us go quiet, like a spell might be broken, jinxed if we even talk about the possibility of my mom and dad getting back together.

  It’s Suzanna’s turn to blush as she realizes her comment was in bad taste.

  No skin off my nose. Dad’s been like a stranger my whole life, so if mom wants to rekindle things between them now, go for it.

  Just don’t try to include me.

  I’d rather not think about the man personally.

  Suze opens her mouth to speak, to apologize but mom changes the subject.

  Like a fresh breeze, she’s usually always able to shift the mood of any situation just by being herself.

  “So!” Mom exclaims loudly, banishing any question on her own romantic plans, “What are you girls doing to pass the time?”

  I stifle a groan, knowing that mom just loves games on a train or anywhere else as much as my best friend does.

  “Truth or dare,” Suzanna says triumphantly, making my mom laugh and clap her hands in front of herself, her eyes shining with mischief as she looks directly at me for some reason.

  “Great! Whose turn is it?” she asks, and Suzanna’s shifting gaze completes the circuit of all eyes on Natasha.

  I’m ‘it’.

  Fine. I’ve got twelve more hours of this, may as well try to have some fun at my own expense.

  “Truth,” I murmur, looking out the window, not even trying to h
ide my disdain for this game especially.

  Too many bad memories for me, but none of them involve my mom or Suzanna.

  Just college stuff.

  The landscape outside hasn’t changed anyway, so it's barely worth a glance.

  It’s either green squares of farmland waiting for the crop, or yellow squares of the flowering crop. Canola or corn, I think.

  Not very panoramic after three hundred miles…

  Suzanna hums with interest as if I’ve surprised her with my choice from the two.

  My mom gasps for effect as both of them seem suddenly in on something, even whispering and giggling to each other to make it more suspenseful.

  I click my tongue in disapproval, knowing my conscience is clear.

  There’s no way either of them could ask me a question I wouldn’t want to answer.

  I don’t think there is any way.

  “Did you go all the way in college? And how many times?” Suzanna asks, making my heart stop.

  Mom gasps for real this time and shoots Suzanna a serious look.

  I feel a stab of hurt in my chest, the place where my heart just shriveled up and died.

  I thought Suzanna had more tact than this, but it’s never been like her to be subtle about anything really.

  I open my mouth to say something in reply, but mom steps in, trying to keep the mood light.

  “Now, Suzanna. That’s two questions really, so I don’t think Natasha has to answer either if she doesn’t want to. We’re trying to have fun here, not make each other miserable,” she says, giving me a knowing and sympathetic wink.

  Suzanna goes quiet. The sting of her earlier comment is still fresh in my mind.

  I ball one hand into a fist, and pretending to wind it open with my other hand, I flip Suzanna the bird, seeing us both make a face once she pokes her tongue out before we both dissolve into a fit of giggle like idiots all over again.

  “Okay, okay,” I say, waving my hands before anyone else gets to speak. Grateful to get out of my turn.

  “Suzanna’s turn,” I say with as much foreboding as I can muster, but she squeals with excitement, eager to have her turn even if it means forgetting all about mine.

  “Truth,” she says without hesitation, actually shivering as if she has something to get off her chest.

  She whispers something to my mom again, making me feel hot in the face.

  I don’t like it when the two of them gang up on me like this, but mom pats my knee, suggesting maybe she should ask Suzanna a ‘truth’ question.

  “To keep it clean if nothing else,” she adds, giving my best friend another sidelong glance.

  The train lets out a loud blast from the horn as we approach another crossing.

  Something hits the side of the train with a dull thud making us all stop for a second and look. The train feels like it’s moving in slow motion.

  There are three or four RVs parked, waiting at the crossing with a crowd waving and jeering at the train.

  Someone even moons the train as it passes noisily, they all seem so loud for some reason. Even from inside the train.

  College jocks and their girlfriends who’ve decided to drive back home convoy style.

  Making as much a nuisance of themselves as they ever did in school.

  It’s when I catch the face of the one who threw something at the train when my stomach heaves. Of all the people in the world why that face.

  “I gotta go use the bathroom,” I groan, suddenly standing up and lurching as the train rounds a bend.

  I clutch my stomach by instinct and somehow find the ladies’ room.

  Cramming myself in the tiny cubicle of a bathroom I take the empty seat and hold my head in my hands, crying.

  Crying like I have for the past four years.

  Why… I thought I was rid of you once and for all…

  Suzanna’s joking around today almost made me forget the past four years.

  All the times I told mom and Suzanna that college was great.

  It kinda wasn’t.

  Suze knows me better than anyone, and always told me she’d be there if I needed her every time I told her I was fine.

  I really thought it was all behind me, that I’d never have to see those morons again.

  But it is over. You’re going home and you never will see them ever again… So get up and dust yourself off.

  I dry my eyes with the sandpaper they pass as toilet tissue and blow my nose. Feeling a little better I head back to our rail car.

  Mom is still there with a far off look as I come back.

  “You okay sweetie?” she asks, her eyes full of concern.

  “I’ll be alright. Where’s Suze?” I ask, sniffing as it registers I can’t hide the fact I was crying.

  “She’s in the bathroom, that way,” she says, wrinkling her mouth as she jerks her thumb in the opposite direction I just came from.

  “What’s wrong with that?” I ask confused.

  “Nothing,” Mom says. “Now tell me what upset you, was it Suzanna, just now?” she insists. “I’m not going with you the whole way home, so we don’t have all day together,” she reminds me.

  Mom really is trying to work things out again with my dad, even moving in with him for a while. Letting Suze and I have our home all to ourselves.

  “Nothing,” I fib. “Just motion sickness I think,” I murmur, looking past her as I hear Suzanna coming back, her squealing, shrieking voice winding up with each step she takes.

  Like a chipmunk on helium.

  “What is it?” I ask, almost annoyed by her happiness as she grips onto my arm with both of her hands.

  “Your turn next, Natasha. I don’t care about the rules… it’s gotta be a dare!” she squeaks, digging into my arm so hard I’m thinking she’s lost her mind.

  “Fine,” I huff, pulling my arm back.

  “Dare,” I tell her defiantly.

  Do your worst.

  Chapter Two

  Michael

  Why the train?

  I ask myself that again before I even get aboard. I’ve got my laptop, my duffle bag and that’s all. But there’s something about the train that seems different.

  Odd.

  Unusual.

  A shiver runs down my spine before I board, giving me a chance to imagine the train crashing. Like people who are scared to fly do before each flight.

  I brush it off, knowing that I stand a greater chance of dying from boredom on this almost empty ghost train than in any train wreck.

  It’s a train wreck that I’m trying to get away from too.

  The one called my life.

  “You need a break,” My doctor told me. “Go on a holiday somewhere unusual… do something that scares you,” he advised me.

  “Hell. You can even use my beach house out West if you want. It’s sitting there empty ten months of the year.”

  As one of my best clients, he knows me more than most.

  My whole life is one big fucking vacation, that’s part of the problem.

  I never meet anyone exciting or done anything interesting.

  Why?

  I’m supposed to be the ‘interesting and exciting’ guy doing my fair share of travel for work. But the reality is I’m bored.

  I’m forty-three and have made a success of everything I touched. I have it all, with some change left over.

  Some people have it all then blow it all.

  Me, I just keep getting more and more whether I like it or not.

  Real estate mainly, some other investments. I started in construction, sold the first house I built for myself and things just kinda grew from there.

  What I don’t have is someone special to share it with.

  I don’t have an equal, a partner. And I don’t mean a business partner either. Been there, done that.

  What a fucking nightmare.

  A king without his queen if ever there was one. That’s me.

  Michael Stapleton. Most eligible bachelor of the year since nineteen
ninety-eight.

  The one thing I can’t even tell my doctor, let alone anyone else out loud, is that I’m not having a mid-life crisis.

  I’m having a need-a-wife crisis.

  My balls ache from not being drained for I forget how long, and my go-to sigh of frustration every night and morning when I feel the empty bed next to me is beyond depressing.

  I catch a glimpse of myself in the train window, reflecting what others see right back at me.

  Stooping a little to slot my bag into the overhead compartment, I remind myself that I’m not other people.

  At over six and a half feet, built like a linebacker I’ve got more money than I know what to do with.

  I watch my reflection, my winning smile grins at me like a ghost from the glass.

  I even catch a sly wink from myself.

  I’ve still got it.

  Just don’t go letting it give you a big head.

  As if I needed reminding, I clock my head on the luggage locker above me, changing my grin to a grimace as I rub my head.

  But it still makes me smile.

  Life’s not all bad. It’s not bad at all.

  I just want… love.

  I just want someone to share all this with.

  Once the train pulls out and the city grime gives way to trees and wide-open spaces, I feel myself relax.

  I wouldn’t get this view from an airplane, staring at a screen for three hours, or worse. The back of someone’s head if I flew coach.

  I used to do that, fly coach, even catch a bus.

  Trying to be different. Trying to—