My cheeks go hot, and I should be embarrassed, but all I can do is giggle. Calder joins in, wheezing and laughing right along with me, and I can only imagine that our neighbors on the other side of the wall must now think us insane as well as sex crazed.
When we calm down, Calder pushes my hair back from my face and looks down into my eyes.
“I love you,” he says softly.
“I love you, too.” I lean up and kiss him on the lips. My body feels languid and heavy and satisfied, and after a long day of moving and our recent exertions, I just want to sink into him and go to sleep.
“I take it you liked your present, then,” I say, sliding the lingerie back down over my hips. Not that it covers anything.
“I think you already have your answer to that,” he says, amusement playing about his eyes. “But yes, I liked it very, very much.”
“Didn’t you say you had something for me, too?”
The corner of his mouth curls up. “I did, didn’t I?”
“Well?” I poke him playfully on the chest. “Are you going to give it to me?”
“Hm.” He takes my hand and lifts it to his face as if inspecting the fingers one by one. “That’s a good question.”
“Don’t tease me.”
His smile broadens. “Tease you? Where’s the fun in that?” He flips my hand and presses a kiss against my palm, but he offers nothing else.
“I see what you’re doing,” I say. We’ve played this little game often enough. “You want me to beg for it.”
“Not precisely.” He plants another kiss at the base of my wrist. “I was rather thinking you might play for it.”
“Play?” I find that I’m smiling in spite of myself. Why am I not surprised by this turn of events?
“Nothing complicated,” he says. “And I’ll play fair, I promise.”
“Since when was trusting your promises a good idea?”
He grins and kisses my hand again. This time, though, he slips his tongue between two of my fingers, sending a shiver all the way up my arm.
“What if I lose?” I say.
He gives another flick of his tongue before looking up at me again. “You’ll just have to make sure you don’t.”
“What if I don’t want to play?”
That gets a raised eyebrow from him. He straightens and drops my fingers, then cups my face between both of his hands.
“Oh, you want to play. You can deny it all you want, sweet one, but I know you. And you never turn down a challenge.” His eyes gleam devilishly. “Our little games excite and arouse you as much as they do me.”
I’m about to argue that the response of my body has less to do with his proposal than it does with the fact that we’re still mostly naked and pressed up against each other—but even I know that that’s a lie. I don’t have to say anything. He reads the truth on my face.
“Trust me,” he says in a honey-sweet tone that turns my insides to mush. “This will be a game that you’ll never forget.”
CHAPTER TWO
He starts by ordering us dinner. He decides to get Chinese food from a little place down the street, and by the time it arrives, my entire body is trembling in anticipation.
I still remember the first time he and I ate Chinese food together. We were both naked, and I was blindfolded. Calder tried to help me eat—but as I remember it, we ended up getting distracted and never even finished the meal. It has to be intentional, him ordering Chinese food again, and I can’t wait to see what he has planned for me this time around. He’s asked that I continue to wear my new lingerie, and I’ve happily consented. My imagination runs wild as he lays out the various cartons on the kitchen counter.
“There you go,” he says, tossing me a pair of wooden chopsticks. “Eat up.”
I blink at him. “Just… eat?” Surely there’s more to it than that.
But he nods. “We’ve had a long day. We need some energy.”
I eye him suspiciously across the feast of fried rice and General Tso’s chicken. He’s ruffling through a box marked “Kitchen” on the counter, and after a moment he produces a bottle of wine wrapped in several layers of dishcloths.
“Merlot?” he asks. He pulls a pair of plastic cups from the box.
I nod, still not completely trusting his motives. The chopsticks are in my hand, but I don’t touch any of the food in front of me.
A moment later he’s filled the cups and set one in front of me.
“Aren’t you hungry?” he asks. He grabs his own chopsticks and starts examining his dinner choices.
“You just want me to eat? No catch?”
His lip curls. “Do you suspect I’m trying to trick you?”
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t.” I grab the cup of wine and pull it toward me to inspect the contents. “Given our history.”
He laughs. “I was hungry. Starving. You helped me work up quite an appetite.” He reaches over and plays with the shoulder strap of my lingerie, sliding his finger beneath the band of lace. “And I thought we should sit down and discuss the rules before we begin.”
“Rules?”
“They’re generally a good idea, yes.” He withdraws his hand and picks up his own cup of wine. “Would you like to hear them?”
I sip at my merlot. “I’m listening.”
He leans back, satisfied. “In this game, you have to guess what my surprise is.”
That doesn’t sound too complicated. “How many guesses do I get?”
“As many as you like. But I warn you—you’ll pay for the wrong ones.”
Ah, I see where this is going.
“And what sort of payment will you be demanding?” I ask, crossing my arms.
“If I told you, it would ruin the fun.” He regards me with amusement over the rim of his cup. “But I’ll tell you this: I will enjoy it very much.”
“So I’ll just be blindly guessing? Do I get any hints? Or is this just some elaborate plan to get me to agree to be at your mercy?”
“I’ll grant you a few hints,” he says. “But you’ll have to earn them.”
“How?”
“Make me a challenge. If you win, you can ask me for a hint. If I win, you have to do something for me.”
I roll my eyes. “This whole thing sounds a little skewed in your favor.”
“Are you trying to tell me you don’t want to play?”