“Because it’s true. Tell me we don’t need social lube right now.”
I glared over at him. “You conveniently left out the social part.”
“I can’t help what a filthy mind you have. I love it, by the way. First, the orgasms to relieve tension, and now this…”
“It wasn’t just me! Mabel’s ready to—” I cut myself off, dropping my head back on a groan as I stared up at the ceiling, praying for a calm that never seemed to be within my grasp when I was in Ford’s presence.
“As the provider of social lube, I’m declaring that we play two truths and a lie,” he said.
I slid a glance at him out of the corner of my eye. “And if I don’t want to?”
“Then I’ll pull Mabel over here, and she can fill in the silence by ranking lube flavors. Since you’ve been staying with her, you probably know better than I do how long she can discuss that. And hey, maybe if we’re really lucky, she brought a sample of the toy she has on special this month to show us.”
When I’d found her rental listing during my search, I’d remembered Mabel as a sweet old lady. And while she was still sweet and old, her personality had…blossomed in the years I’d been gone. I might not have been quite so quick to rent the room from her had I known she hosted pleasure parties and sold a plethora of adult toys out of her living room. And her converted she-shed. And her trunk. And a booth down at the farmers market.
Which was all great. I loved that for her and for all the people she helped explore that side of themselves. I had a collection of my own. But I did not want to discuss it in public, and I definitely didn’t want my business splashed over Facebook for everyone and their mother to see. Which was exactly why I never bought anything from my landlord.
“You wouldn’t dare,” I said.
He shifted so he was leaning against the metal fencing, his ankles crossed and hands slid into his jeans pockets. The epitome of a laid-back, easygoing jackass. “I assure you, kitten, I would.”
I narrowed my eyes on him, trying to get a read if he was bluffing or not. But no. He wasn’t. Absolutely nothing bothered this man, least of all a woman old enough to be our grandmother talking to us about sex toys. But I’d seen enough of her demonstrations that I didn’t want to suffer through watching her place a toy in a bowl of water to showcase how powerful it would be on a woman’s clit.
“Fine,” I said through clenched teeth. “But you’re first.”
“Dying to know more about me, are you?” He rubbed his hands together and grinned. “Then I better make these good…”
I rolled my eyes. “Are we betting something? Or will you have lost enough for the night after I demolish you at twenty-one?”
A slow smile spread across his face, making him look a little too much like the cat who ate the canary. AndIwas the canary. “I’m always up for a bet. How about winner decides what we do after this?”
“After?”
“Yep.”
I nearly laughed. If I had it my way, there wouldn’t be an after. “And if I want to go home?”
Ford shrugged. “Then you go home.Ifyou win.”
“And if you win? What am I setting myself up for here?”
“Already giving up? What happened to the feisty woman who’s always ready to fight to the death?”
“She wants to go home, get out of these clothes, and veg out in front of the TV before falling into an exhausted sleep.” I raised a brow when Ford’s only response was an intense stare down—one I could feel in all the places that should have been dormant in his presence.Shouldhave been, but most definitely were not. “Well?”
Ford’s eyes were dark, and though he cleared his throat, his voice still came out raspy. “Dinner.”
I blinked at him for several long moments before saying, “You want toextendthis?”
“What I want is for my sister to get off my ass. You can’t tell me she hasn’t been harassing you, too. If I don’t have twenty missed texts from her and Everly by the time this night is over, it’ll be a goddamn miracle.”
Addisonhadbeen persistent, asking me every couple of days what my plans were and what I intended to do for this date that I’d paid way too much for. She’d even enlisted Everly to pester me, which had only made me feel worse about my original intentions to ignore it altogether.
“Fine. But when I win, we’re still telling them we went for dinner.”
“Deal.” He agreed so quickly, I barely had time to register it before he lifted his chin toward my axe. “Can you pay attention while you’re throwing, or do we need to have a time-out?”
I pulled my axe from the tree stump and got into position for my throw. “Don’t worry, I can listen and still kick your ass.”
