Forbidden Dare

Worry dominated Liv Greybrook’s expression while she nibbled on the corner of her fuller lower lip. Some distance away, she watched Grady O’Neil, her boss, her brother’s best friend since college, and the man with whom she had the biggest crush since she was seven years old. After paying their condolences, her older sister Elle with her husband Ken, their two sons and dog, as well as a few of Grady’s colleagues left. The work crew who laid the cherry wood casket covered in white roses into the newly dug earth also completed their task and vacated the grounds.

“Liv, you comin’?” asked Maggie, Liv’s big brother, as he gestured toward her. He clasped the other hand with that of his girlfriend, Julien. Daddy stood beside them, sliding on a raincoat over his suit. He glanced at our mourning friend in the meantime.

“No, you go on,” Liv insisted, even though she carpooled to the gravesite with them. She nodded in Grady’s direction. “Someone should stay and make sure he’s okay.”

In understanding, they hugged and waved to her goodbye. Liv waved back with her slight smile. Soon her attention panned back to her boss. She pressed her lips together, unable to imagine his grief. They stood alone in the immediate area, not that she ever minded lingering in his presence.

Older and wiser, Liv could not say that she outgrew her crush on her boss, but her relationship with him skirted the teasing sort of friendliness. Never once did he hurt her feelings about it, and consistently in the last fifteen years, he was nice to her. When Liv started dating boys her own age, she sought Grady for the answers to her questions concerning them. Daddy and her sister Elle were too old-fashioned, and Maggie was too domineering to be rational. Liv counted on Grady being honest with her, which was why she liked hanging out with him.

Liv pursued his advice on other topics, too, including her desire for a change that meant leaving Daddy’s boating company and finding her own path after graduating college. She wanted to be taken seriously like the woman she became. After speaking with Grady about it, she confessed an interest in law. He seemed so passionate about his work as a trial attorney and loved what he did whenever she spoke to him about it. Liv desired to be a part of something like that, which made her feel that way. In fact, when she passed the LSAT, Grady was the first person she told in her excitement. He treated her out to dinner to celebrate.

Her smile at the memory faded to the reality of the handsome man oblivious to his surroundings at present. Grady failed to move from where he stared at the fresh grave. Liv imagined that her boss still replayed his mother’s sudden passing in his mind. Once a month, he would treat Mom O’Neil to a meal at the restaurant of her choice. The two of them used the time to catch up on the latest news floating around town about the impressive hotshot lawyer and his latest win for his firm.

As mother and son took a stroll after eating a great meal, the last thing Grady expected was that a thug in a hoodie would attempt to steal his mother’s purse in his vicinity. The robbery happened so fast in the shuffle and struggle in the street that ensued before the gunshot rang off. The thug sprinted off with the purse and left Grady to contend with his mother dying in his arms, helpless to stop any of it.

“Okay, here we go.”

Tying off her trench coat more securely around her, Liv opened an umbrella over her head to guard against the cold rainstorm threatening with sputters at first. Grady sought no shelter to block the weather, though. Rain gradually soaked through his black Italian slim-fit suit with a black tie over a black linen shirt. His ordinarily messy brown hair with copper highlights was combed neatly away from his forehead today. A hint of brown stubble lined his perfect jaw as it had since the day his mother died.

After glancing up at the late morning sky, Liv approached him in growing concern that had her nibbling more of her lip than just the corner. “Grady? It’s time. This rain won’t let up. You’ll catch a cold if you don’t get out of it.”

The cold rainstorm pelted him harder than before. Grief won the day over his model features straight off the runway in the fine profile he made with his hands in his slacks. Grady might as well had been another striking statue in the cemetery until his hands came from his pants. Other than that, he remained standing where he stood during the graveside service. He stared fixed at his mother’s grave.

Liv reached and took his hand in hers. When he glanced at her in surprise, it seemed, she smiled softly, glad to get his attention at last. She nodded, but her smile faltered to the sorrow that filled his baby blue eyes. His tears mixed with the rain as they fell over him.

“Oh, Grady, I’m so sorry.”

Liv’s response to him was immediate and without hesitation. First, in sympathy for his heartbreaking pain, she gasped and frowned. Then, dropping her umbrella, she wrapped her arms around him at his neck to the back of his head. Grady looked like a little boy lost. To see such a confident and beautiful man so vulnerable was unexpected. That mask of cool control always so firmly intact over the years she came to know him like part of the family drew her in like nothing before had.

Grady shivered against her soft warmth letting it envelop him. Liv was sweet to his senses. She always had been. Even on a gloomy day, she brought the sunshine with her. Her smile was infectious, and her manner friendly. Liv knew no stranger, and the world was a better place because she stood in it. Nothing ever seemed to get her down.

“Liv...” Grady breathed her in, gathering her vanilla and cherries smell as he closed his eyes to the tears that fell from his eyes. Her scent was divine, like her warmth to the cold sorrow that seeped from some chasm inside him. He took the comfort she freely offered in the squeeze of her arms around him. Her hands stroked the back of his head with tenderness. Responding to her, he wrapped his arms around her, too, and cried with silent dignity.

The floodgates broke from above and within him. All the anguish and pain of losing the one person who meant the most to him and knew him best was more than he could endure. Grady was now an orphan. With no one left to love him, he was truly alone.

God help him, but he craved more than was safe. Grady wanted to soothe the ache of loneliness that assaulted him in that widening chasm that threatened to swallow his heart. Desperation filled him with the hunger to feel anything more than nothing or grief. He reached for Liv’s light to warm him, to chase the shadows of sorrow away. Grady could not fight it anymore--fight how he wanted his best friend’s little sister.

Damn, she wasn’t a little girl anymore of seven. Liv stood a woman grown, and the truth of that came on her 21st birthday, where he and Magnus served to indoctrinate her into the world of drinking. It quickly became apparent that the hot natural blond with gorgeous mile-long legs was no newbie to a party. Not only did both of them notice this, but so did every other male they encountered that night who lusted after her lithe body. Hell, Grady definitely did, and it disgusted him. Little Livy, his doll face, had been like a little sister to him in the way Magnus was his brother, not just his frat brother and best friend. They had been a part of each other’s lives for over fifteen years.

However, after that night, the three of them drank and partied, that impression after years of conditioning left Grady in a hurry. Lust centered in his heart instead, no different from any other hot-blooded male that Magnus would pound to kingdom come he deemed unworthy of Liv. Regardless of the less savory consequences, the fantasies began to take root. Grady couldn’t stop them once they started either.

What would her nipples look like? Pink or peachy? And, her cunny? Would it be groomed smooth, or did she shave a tidy bush? Would she be as tight as he imagined? Would she taste like sin after he played with her clit? If Magnus knew the scandalous thoughts running through his head some days when so near his little tart of a sister, he’d kill him!

When Grady dared peel himself away from her arms, the tiniest bit to stare into her topaz blue eyes, he found the caring that lived there for him but so much more. The same yearning reflected in Liv’s eyes festered dangerously in himself! That knowledge spread over him with heat, and his resistance crumbled at the sudden yet sweet cling of her lips pressed against his.

“Oh, no!” Liv gaped at him.

Fear of her action made Liv draw away from him in shock of herself. She comprehended the fragile boundary crossed with her boss and her big brother’s best friend, ten years her elder. Was she out of her mind?! Kissing Grady O’Neil would surely be her destruction.

Liv knew better than to fall for the trap. Grady was a player, remember? Not the boyfriend sort of guy at all. She heard the stories between her brother and him enough in the past to know the truth of it. But, if asked, Grady would not even deny his love of variety in women regarding his dating preference in his conceit.

None of that mattered, not even his immense ego when he closed the narrow space between them again. His arms seized Liv against his chest, where she detected his every harsh breath. No doubt entered her mind that Grady wanted her as badly as she wanted him. The lick of excitement that washed over her exhilarated her. That seemed the only important thing in the rash action of kissing him.

“Grady, I—” she began but never finished.

His mouth invaded hers with a hunger that left her dazed. Liv moaned when he did. She clutched him near her as if he could not get close enough. The unhinged way his mouth dominated hers forced a new gasp from her. His tongue took full advantage and stroked her into submission. Her leg went up in how she felt the action in her toes. Her dreams of him never accounted for the sheer pleasure of his kiss.