Chapter 179
Dare Day
Adrienne
Today is not my day, waking up with a hangover because of Kalen and his stupid antics. Falon and I went to his house for dinner and he told me that he could drink me under the table. I know that he can’t and I proved my point. Except, now I feel like shit and it’s a work day.
Every day is a work day. Even if I get a day off I’m always doing something.
Pulling my car into The Order headquarters, I see a line of people at the door. Since when do we have lines? Maybe I missed a memo or some shit.
Parking, I leave my sunglasses in place as I drag my arse from the car, storm straight past the line as people moan at me to wait my turn. I flip them off on my way past.
Cap is at the front of the line holding a bucket.
“What the fuck is all this?” I demand, trying to ignore the way my heart beats a tiny bit quicker at the sight of Cap. “What happened?”
He sighs and shakes his head. “Kalen Knox is what happened. Everyone has to take a dare to enter the building. Apparently it’s Dare Day.”
“And if we don’t?” I demand.
Cap shrugs his huge broad shoulders and I try not to drool at the way his t-shirt strains over his muscles with the action. “It’s Kalen, so who knows?”
I snatch a slip of paper from the bucket and slide past Cap, and my phone pings. It’s an Order email, which I immediately open, expecting official correspondence from Amelie, but a video message with Kalen’s face pops up.
For fuck’s sake.
I am too hungover for his shit today.
“Happy Dare day! Today everyone’s mission is to complete their dares.
If you don’t want to take part, the door is behind you.
Thanks for working for us. Remember, blood in, blood out, so we’ll be seeing you soon.
If you fail to complete your dare by 2pm, I personally will assign you a new one, but I wouldn’t recommend it… ”
His voice trails off and I stalk down the hall towards Amelie’s office, only knocking once before I open the door. The moron himself is sitting behind her desk with his feet up on the wooden desk crossed at the ankles.
“Do you really think this shit is legal?” I snarl.
“Nope,” he replies honestly. “But who are you going to tell? My dad, my girl, my brothers? Maybe the cops? I don’t advise that because then Amelie will have to start using Branson, or Elsie to clean up my mess, and mad Amelie turns me on.”
“She’s going to murder you,” I say through clenched teeth.
“I like it rough. Do you think she will spank me? Oh! Choking has its advantages!”
“You’re a fucking idiot,” I say shaking my head. How Amelie deals with his stupid day in and day out is beyond me.
“That means you need to do a dare as well and since you wrote them all, I think it’s only fair…”
“Actually,” he says, pulling his feet off of the desk. “If you actually checked my emails, you would have seen me ask people for dares, all of them are in the bucket, I just get the fun of assigning new ones for those who failed.”
“Do you want to make things interesting?”
Kalen’s eyes sparkle with mischief as he smiles at me. He is so easy to play, the moron can’t turn away from the idea of taking me on, it’s a daily battle between us.
“Interesting, how?”
I shrug. “You pick my dare, and I pick yours. We write them down and exchange them at the same time.”
“What’s in it for me when I win and you lose?” he asks.
“If I win, you don’t talk for a week in my presence. That includes when you show up at my house unannounced, when I’m at work, and on the phone to Amelie.”
“And if I win, you have to publicly announce that you have feelings for Cap, but it has to be a spectacle. Like how the American teenagers do promposals.”
I splutter. “I don’t love Cap! We may have fucked once or twice but he knows it didn’t mean anything.” Kalen’s smile takes over his stupid face and I want to smack it right off. I sigh. “Fine, if you win, I will make an arse of myself. Are you happy?”
Kalen nods. “Great. Now, let’s write our dares down and each person has to do them when the other person says so. The other person has to also be there to witness the dare.”
I nod and Kalen hands me a piece of paper and a pen. I know exactly what I plan to do and I know for a fact that he won’t complete his dare, so it’s going to be a very peaceful week for me.
He scribbles on his paper and I do the same and then fold it in half. He comes to stand in front of me and I smile as I hand the paper over and I open his.
I dare you to walk into Amelie’s office during her meeting today stark naked.
That mother fucker!
Amelie is going to kill us both.
I know for a fact that she has a meeting with Branson today and all four of the Knox brothers will be in attendance because they have trust issues when it comes to Baxter and Amelie. Still, it’ll be worth it. He raises a brow at me when he reads his.
“This is hardly a dare,” he says, throwing his paper on the ground.
The newbies have to face their fears to get in, and this year, I happen to know that Kalen didn’t set the rooms up.
Amelie hired someone else to do it after Kalen went a little too far, like he always does.
I mean the poor guy he put through his fear was afraid of getting his finger cut off by a meat grinder and he did lose his finger.
It was a nightmare for Amelie, since the idea is to get them to not cower to their fears, not willingly shove their hands in grinders. Fucking idiot.
This year, I also happen to know one of the males is deathly afraid of clowns, just like Kalen. I had the joy of reading their files. I do it for fun when Amelie doesn’t have any tasks for me.
“Which newbie should I shadow? Or to prove a point I can do all of them.”
“Nah. Just Declan Jones.”
I also know that Kalen doesn’t like Declan, he wants him to fail because he flirts with Amelie. So he will accept his dare just to show this guy up.
“Deal,” he says, holding out his hand.
“Declan runs though at one,” I say.
“You better get naked, my meeting starts in half an hour.”
“I guess I will be seeing you really soon. Oh, and Kalen? Amelie is going to kill you. If you wanted to see me naked, you really should have asked years ago before you met Amelie.”
I chuckle as I leave the office. Amelie will forgive me when I tell her that it was Kalen’s dare to me, and when I tell her his dare, she will be standing right next to me and will want to watch. Hell, she’ll probably record it for me.
Setting a timer on my phone, I head towards my office.
Cap calls out to me and I stop, turning to face him.
“Wanna get lunch today?” he asks and I nod.
“If I’m still alive.”
He arches a brow at me. “What have you done?”
I chuckle. “It’s not what I have done, but more what Kalen has done. Please, if I do die, promise me you’ll watch Kalen do his dare at one, record it, and play it at my funeral. It’s my only request.”
Cap agrees and tries to get me to tell him why I’m going to die, but I can’t because if it gets back to Amelie she will shut it down, and I am willing to let The Knox brothers, Branson and the rest of this building see me naked, just to win this dare.
To see Kalen piss himself in fright is just an added bonus.
I bid Cap farewell when we reach my office.
Thankfully my office space is just outside Amelie’s office, hers is massive considering all four of the dickheads share it with her – unofficially, of course.
They all have their own spaces but they tend to gravitate to wherever she is.
At least until she gets sick of them, demands space and kicks them all out.
So I really don’t have to walk far.
I’m also thankful that she dragged me to get waxed last week, it’s my least favourite time of the month. Not all of us are regularly getting laid to need to be smoother than a baby’s butt, yet I still get dragged along and she pays for the misery she puts me through.
Time ticks down and I can’t prolong getting naked, so I remove my boots, jeans, hoodie and t-shirt.
The bra and underwear are harder to do. I talk a big game but I still have insecurities like most – all?
– women do, and the Knox brothers are intimidating as fuck…
minus Kalen. Don’t even get me started on Branson.
My timer goes off, I wait five minutes so the meeting is in full swing. Poking my head out of my office, the hall is clear, so I make a dash for it. I turn the handle to Amelie’s office and breathe a quick sigh of relief knowing they are already in the conference room. I hear Baxter’s low timbre.
Well, here goes nothing.
Opening the door, I walk in. Almost everyone has their backs to me, so it’s Baxter that can see me first and he laughs, to the point tears fill his eyes.
“I’m so glad I don’t work on site any more, but damn girl, you are fine.”
I chuckle and five sets of eyes are all of a sudden on me.
Kalen is immediately in fits of laughter, Sawyer turns around so he is no longer facing me, Slade does the same, Onyx looks like he is ready to march over here and put me over his knee and spank me.
If he didn’t belong to Amelie that thought would turn me on.
Amelie jumps to her feet, throws her hand out in front of the scary twin, and takes a step towards me. She still hasn’t said anything.
“Baxter, I will be right back.” Are her only words before she drags me out of the conference room and into her actual office and slams the door closed behind us.
“Have you lost your fucking mind?” she snaps, turning her back on me.
“Maybe,” I say and she turns back to face me. “Blame Kalen, this was his dare.”
She opens her mouth, closes it to compose herself. “I hope you have something better for him, because if you don’t, I will have to deal with this. Luckily it was just Baxter in there.”
“What about your guys seeing me naked?”
Amelie snorts. “Did you see how fast two of them spun around? And plus, Onyx will fuck me stupid later as an apology for looking at you, so it’s a win-win for me.”