Dare to Resist (a Wedding Dare novella) (Entangled Brazen) by Laura Kaye Page A

between them. “Can you tell me about this, Kady?”
    “Um, it’s mine, and that’s pretty much all you need to know,” she said as she reached for it.
    Colton yanked it away and rose to his feet. “I know that much—”
    “You’re being an ass right now. Give me the book,” she said, marching up to him and planting her hands on her hips.
    “I’m not trying to be. I’m trying to talk about something with you. Seriously.” He nailed her with a stare. “Like we did yesterday.”
    Her eyes went wide and her whole face frowned. She hugged herself. “Colton, I’m not talking about my sex life with you.”
    “Your sex life? So, you do this kind of stuff?” he asked, struggling to keep his voice even and to decide if he was thrilled at the possibility or terrified for her safety. It took so little to make this kind of kink go very wrong.
    “What business of yours is it if I do?” she asked. “Let me answer that for you. None.”
    The lifelong friend and dominant male personality inside him both disagreed. “This kind of edgeplay can be dangerous—”
    “Oh my God,” she said, throwing up her hands. “Listen, Dad , thank you very much for the lecture on safe sex. It’s just maybe possible that sometime in the last eight years of being an adult I’ve learned how to take care of myself.” Her mouth dropped open. “Is this why you’ve been pissy all morning? It is, isn’t it?” She raked her hands into her hair and tugged the length of it into a ponytail. “Because you don’t approve, or, what? It offends you? God .”
    No, she had it all wrong. The irony. “Kady, that’s not—”
    “I’m so mad at you right now I can barely see straight,” she said turning away and pacing toward the bathroom. “No matter what I do or don’t do, you don’t get to judge me.” She whirled on him. “And if you tell Tyler about this, I swear I will never talk to you again.”
    As if he would. If he could just get a word in edgewise… “Kady—”
    “Do you—”
    “Kady!” he yelled, needing some way to get her attention, because now he was getting pissed off, too. She seriously thought he’d judge her? That he was some kind of judgmental asshole? He dropped the book to the bed, stalked up to her, and essentiallytrapped her against the closet doors. Heaving a deep breath, he muscled the anger back. That wasn’t going to help anything. Besides, weren’t her worries about his reaction similar to the ones he feared about hers?
    Aw, hell .
    “I’m not judging you and of course I won’t tell Tyler.” Skepticism filled her gaze. He shook his head and couldn’t help the humorless laugh he chuffed out.
    “This isn’t funny,” she said, crossing her arms.
    “No, it’s not. It’s serious. I’m trying to be serious.”
    “Right. It’s dangerous. Message received.”
    Goddamnit, she had a smart mouth on her. So many things he’d like to do to temporarily cure her of that. And now he knew she’d enjoy them, too. “Kady, I just meant—”
    She huffed, stoking both the flames of his aggression and his arousal. “I got it.”
    He fisted his hands. “No, you fucking don’t, because you won’t stop talking long enough for me to explain myself.”
    She blanched. “Well, do it. What do you want to say?”
    Here it was. Moment of truth time. Fucking finally. “Three years ago—”
    “Colton, I don’t want to talk about ancient—”
    He was on her in a flash. One hand over her mouth, the other cradling the back of her head so that he didn’t hurt her when he shoved her against the closet door. He held her there with the weight of his own body, his legs on the outsides of hers effectively boxing her in. “It’s not your turn to talk. Understand?”
    Eyes wide, nostrils flaring, Kady searched his eyes and finally nodded. He could almost feel the questions rolling off of her.
    “ Three years ago ,” he said again, arching a brow, “I pulled back from what we started for a couple of reasons. Same