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

to. We shouldn’t be too long.”
    “Thank ya, son.”
    Colton ducked his head and retrieved the big, colorful umbrella from a bucket in the corner.
    “Aw, look at you being all sweet,” Kady said under her breath as they paused at the door.
    “Through and through, cupcake,” he said with a wink.
    She rolled her eyes, even though sometimes it was actually true. “Also, take note, that is the only time tonight you’re going to hear those words.”
    For a moment, he frowned, and then she saw the lightbulb go on over his head. The old man had thanked him. “Keep talking smack and your loss is going to be that much more humiliating.” He followed her out onto the sidewalk.
    Kady looked at the kiddie-pool-size puddles covering every part of the parking lot’s surface and stepped out of her heels. “I’ll be more stable on bare feet,” she said, her fingers hooked around the backs of the shoes.
    “Don’t know how much good this umbrella is going to do us,” Colton said. “But it’s better than nothing. Ready?”
    Kady nodded.
    The heat of Colton’s arm slipped around her shoulders, sending a jolting thrill through her body. “Let’s make a run for it,” he said, raising the umbrella over them. “Stay close.”

Chapter Four
    A little over an hour later, she and Colton had bellies full of burgers, fries, and Oreo cookie milk shakes and had delivered George, as he finally introduced himself, his coffee, as promised. The food had been good, the milk shake amazing , and their dinner conversation easy and flowing. And she’d caught herself twice before slipping and thanking him—once when he’d passed her the ketchup and again when he’d let her finish the last of his shake. They’d talked shop most of the time—sharing industry gossip and experiences with new software, speculating on the identity of a new hacker trying to make a name for himself, and other equally geektastic topics. Exactly the stuff she loved.
    Kady didn’t remember a time when she wasn’t fascinated by computers, not just what they could do, but how they actually operated. She could still hear her mother’s voice echoing off the walls of the family office totally flabbergasted that a nine-year-old Kady had disassembled the desktop PC. When Kady managed to reassemble the machine so that it worked good as new, her father had found her some science and computer summer camps to apply to. By the time she’d turned ten, she’d known exactly what she wanted to do with her life.
    She really loved that Colton got that about her. And he always had. Even when they’d bickered or harassed each other when they’d been younger, he’d always respected her interest and her ability. When they talked computers, he’d never cared that she was something of a nerd, nor did her being a girl seem to bother him.
    Add all that together with the fact that the incredibly sexy man with whom she now found herself stranded had been an absolutely beautiful boy, and it was no surprise at all how hard she’d crushed on him.
    The door to their room was barely closed behind her when Colton flopped on the bed and rubbed his stomach. “If I didn’t think there was a serious chance of drowning out there, I’d go for a run.”
    Kady dropped her heels to the floor and her bare feet froze right where she stood on the industrial beige carpet. She barely heard his words because of the amount of brain capacity that had diverted to the visual he presented. One part of her brain—the biggest part, if she was going to be honest—focused on the fact that Colton’s long, lean body looked so damn amazing all sprawled out on the bed that Kady wanted to pounce on him, especially since the way his left leg hung off the edge pulled his dress pants tighter across his groin, showing off the subtle but unmistakable outline of his cock. But another part—small but vocal—saw Colton lying on the bed and remembered that the room had only the one, and that they were going to have