“Truth or dare? Drink if you don’t answer the question or do the dare.”
“What are we, sixteen?” I scoff, although I can’t say I’m entirely displeased with the idea of making Allie squirm with questions. Knowing her, she would probably choose “dare” every time, though.
She huffs. “Okay, never have I ever?”
“That’s even worse!” I laugh, and she narrows her eyes at me.
“Ugh, never mind. I’ll just drink alone.” Standing up, she grabs the flask and flicks the switch on the wall that ignites the gas fireplace. The fire whirs to life, the flames dancing in shades of scarlet and burnt orange. We still haven’t discussed the queen-sized elephant in the room. I have no doubt that Allie thinks she’s getting the bed, and if it were anyone—literally anyoneelse in my life, I would offer to sleep on the floor without a second thought, but I can’t let her get off that easy.
“Wait,” I say, and she turns. “Fine, we can play, but let’s make it interesting.” I stand up and grab the two wine glasses on top of the mini-bar, pouring an equal amount from the flask into each before handing one to Allie.
“The rules are simple. You have to drink every time you’ve done something. First one with an empty glass loses.”
“And what does the winner get?”
I lean in, watching her eyes dart back and forth between mine, taking note of the steady inhale and exhale of her breaths. My dick twitches, but I ignore it. “The bed.”
Her face scrunches up and I know she’s going to try to argue with me, but just as she opens her mouth, that devious look crosses over her features again as she drops her ass onto the rug in front of the fireplace. “Fine.”
“Great. I’ll go first. Never have I ever…” I look around the room momentarily until my eyes land on her arm. “Gotten a tattoo.”
“Of course you haven’t,” she mutters as she takes a small sip of tequila, licking her lips after.
She thinks for a moment. “Never have I ever…been rich,” she says with a triumphant smirk.
I take a tentative sip because the last thing I want is to have theI’m not wealthy just because I come from wealthconversation right now.
Allie clears her throat and looks at me expectantly. Right, it’s my turn. “Never have I ever had sex in a car.”
Allie doesn’t skip a beat as she takes a sip of her drink. She must notice my questioning grin and shrugs her shoulders. “What? I lost my virginity in the back of a Subaru.”
I can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of me. “Sounds like a great first time.”
“It was awful,” she admits. “It was his mom’s car, and hisbrothers played soccer, so there were all these sweaty jerseys and nets in the back. I got caught at one point.”
I’m laughing so hard now, it physically hurts, and I have to hold my stomach while tears spring to my eyes.
“It’s not funny!” Allie protests. “It was the only time I've ever been tied up during sex, and it was accidental.”
Suddenly, my laughter stops and my eyes land on her again. Her hair is almost completely dry now and hangs in subtle waves well past her shoulders. She must normally straighten it. Her face is clean of any makeup, her blue eyes sparkling behind her glasses, and I can see a very pale smattering of freckles just above the bridge of her nose.
God, she’s so beautiful, it almost hurts.
I’ve never really been into bondage, but I can’t say the idea of tying Allie Montgomery up, or at the very least controlling her, doesn’t light something within me that I didn’t even know was there. She straightens up when she notices me looking at her.
“Can you sit down or something? You’re making me nervous just standing there like a creep.”
Ignoring her jabs for once, I sit down across from her, making sure there’s a healthy amount of space between us. There’s a fraction of a second when I think she might shimmy closer to me or make a comment about there being a continent between us, but she doesn’t.
“Anyway, it’s my turn. Never have I ever…” She bites her lip and cocks her head to the side. “Had sex with someone named Skylar.”
Icy blue eyes flick to my hand, and it’s almost as if she’s willing it to stay still. It does. I don’t even make the slightest gesture toward bringing it to my lips.
“Hmm,” is all she says, but I don’t miss the look of relief in her eyes. I give her a knowing smile, but she ignores it and continues on as if she couldn’t care less. “Your turn.”
“Never have I ever…” I don’t know if it’s the tequila making me bold or the way the flames of the fire create shadows that dance and twirl across her face, giving her that same ethereal look she had that night. Or maybe it’s the fact that she’s not wearing pants and the knowledge that there’s only a thin strip of fabric separating her from my touch is almost too much to handle. Whatever it is, I say it. What I’ve wanted to bring up since I first saw her again after all those months.
She looks at me expectantly and I crook my jaw into a subtle grin. “…been finger-fucked on the beach,” I finally finish. The second it comes out of my mouth, I know that it was a mistake and I immediately want to dive into the ether and find all the words so I can shove them back in my mouth. Hurt flashes briefly in her eyes before she picks up her glass, lifts it to her mouth, and downs the remaining liquid in one go. She slams it onto the floor, which is thankfully blanketed by a large area rug, and stands up.
