We’re all more than we appear to be.

“Truth or dare?” His question pops my thoughts.

“Truth.”

“What’s your strangest fantasy?”

“I change my mind. I choose dare,” I say quickly.

He laughs. “Play by the rules, darling.”

“Dare,” I repeat, not backing down.

“Fine. I’ll let you cheat this once.”

Cheat. That is a vile word, but I stay my course.

“I dare you…” His eyes flit around the room before landing back on me. “To answer my question.” He full-on grins.

“You’re terrible,” I deadpan.

“You love me. Even if you won’t say it anymore.”

 “Maybe.” Ugh. I stare at my traitorous bottle of Patron for loosening my lips and deteriorating my brain.

His hand dips further to my ass, and he pulls me so close that I realize I’m sitting on his lap, my legs sprawled to the side. He combs the hair off my neck and places a light kiss on my nape. He watches how my body shivers from the touch, warms from the alcohol, and dizzies from his closeness.

“You wanted to play this game,” he reminds me. “Somewhere in your heart, you wanted these things to be revealed.”

I did. And that’s why I had the alcohol. To build my courage. I take another small sip, my lips wet with the liquor. He rubs his thumb across them, slowly. As my breath hitches, he puts his thumb in his mouth, tasting the tequila.

“My strangest fantasy?” I repeat, studying him like he’s the most interesting specimen in the universe. To me, he most definitely is. When the answer suddenly hits me, I pale. I’m not even close enough to being that drunk to tell him. But I can’t lie. I hate cheaters so damn much. “Ask me something else.”

“No,” he says, not making this easy for me. He rests a hand on the back of my neck, so near now that his chest touches mine. He inhales strongly, my body closing in on him. The tension winds me in a taut strand, the place between my legs beginning to pulse for touch. He kisses right outside of my lips. “Answer me,” he murmurs with a deep, husky voice.

“Define strange,” I breathe.

He’s abandoned his wine bottle somewhere. And I don’t even care to search for it. “Not normal to society’s traditional standards.”

Yes, my fantasy is definitely abnormal. I’ve thought about it a few times before, and I have no idea why it aroused me. “I shouldn’t be turned on by it.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” He brushes my hair out of my face again, his gaze steadily and slowly skimming every inch of me, heating me up more than the alcohol now.

“I think my fantasy is weird, even for your standards.”

He stops stroking me and his eyebrow arches, pure curiosity pouring through his gaze. “Now you have to tell me.”

“I picture you.” My vocal cords freeze.

“Good. Keep going.”

I smack his arm.

“I picture you as well,” he says. “I have since I was seventeen.”

“Really?”

“It wasn’t fair to the other people I was with, but you’ve been the most fascinating person to me. And no one could really compare in my mind.”

 I rephrase his words and hear I love you. Even if he won’t ever say them. This proclamation inflates my courage. And I sit up a little straighter on his lap. I lick my lips and continue, “I picture you and me.”

“We’re getting somewhere close, I suspect.”

I glare. “We can move on if you don’t want to hear it.”

“Rose,” he says affectionately, “I would sit here for eighty more years and listen to you talk. I love the sound of your voice and every meaning behind your words.”

“So you love my voice but you don’t love me?”

He grips my butt hard, and a gasp catches in my throat. “Maybe you should be labeled smartass after we fuck.”

I actually laugh.

He smiles with me. “Tell me,” he whispers, his lips tickling my ear. “N’ai pas peur.” Don’t be afraid.

I swallow. “I may not like it, even though I’ve imagined it.”

He groans, half in frustration, the other half in arousal. He breathes more heavily than before. “You’re killing me.”

He hardens beneath me. I really, really love that power. “Maybe I should draw out the suspense then and never tell you.”

“No.” He cups my face in a strong hand. “If you could live inside my mind right now, you’d realize how crazy you’re making me.”

“I want to be in your mind,” I say honestly, the alcohol doing its trick as I run my hands across his chest, popping the buttons of his white shirt.

“You’re almost all the way there.”

That does it. I take a deep breath and I tell him. “I’m always sleeping when it happens.” I don’t break his gaze. I stay strong. I can tell him my fantasy. I can do this without balking like a coward. “And I wake up to you inside of me…thrusting…” I trail off as I try to read his expression that stays blank.

I can’t tell whether he thinks I’m weird or not.

His hand rises from my neck to the back of my head, and he kisses my unmoving, frightened lips before he whispers, “I’ve done much stranger things, Rose.” I hear the smile in his words, and I immediately relax. “Your turn,” he says. And just like that, he brushes it off so I don’t keep fretting.

It felt good to share that, to be more open sexually. I think I could do this more often with him. It’s not so hard. “Truth or dare?” I ask, my knuckles whitening as I grip the bottle of my Patron, pent up the longer he touches me.

“Truth.”

“What rouses you more, my body or my brain?”

His eyes drift to the tops of my breasts while one hand slides up my nightgown, settling on my bottom above my panties. “Both, equally.”

If I wasn’t so intoxicated by his presence and the liquor, I would make him give me a definitive answer, but I let it slide.

“Truth or dare?” he asks.

The last truth was difficult, and I know he won’t make it any easier. So I say, “Dare.”

He exhales deeply, so very aroused. Places in my body are clenching that have never clenched before. “I dare you,” he says, “to let me take off your nightgown.”

Before I even nod, his hands slip all the way beneath the silk, and he slowly lifts the fabric over my head, my breasts visible for his intense, heady gaze. My nipples already stand at attention.

I love the way he’s staring at me. It makes me feel more than just beautiful. I feel like I’m his. Like no one else could possibly compare to me. He doesn’t even have to say the words. I see it in his eyes. I can practically read it in his mind.

I sit on his lap, only in black panties, while he’s fully clothed. I want to strip him, but when I try to take off his unbuttoned shirt, he grips my wrists hard in disapproval. Right, we’re still playing the game. “Truth or dare?” I ask him.

“Truth.”

My eyes narrow. “You were supposed to pick dare.” I’d love to see his cock again, but it stays hidden in his pants. Just staring at the large bulge makes me wet.

“But I didn’t.”

“Fine. If you could cut off any part of my body and store it in a jar, what would it be?”

“Your eyes.” He doesn’t miss a beat.

I glare.

“And they’d look at me just like that.” His fingers glide across my hip, but he stays away from my breasts on purpose. I’ve never wanted him to press against me so badly. “Truth or dare?”

“Dare.” I’ll do anything.

“Let me play with you for…” He checks his charcoal Rolex. “…ten minutes.” It’s as ambiguous as he wants it to be. And before I can ask or accept (which I would have), he has me pinned flat on my back.

His lips touch mine in a big inhale, causing my body to buck up and meet his.

And then his hand descends towards my belly, his mouth trailing my jaw to my breasts. He sucks my nipple and bites the bud, the pressure grasping my throat.

I want more force on my neck, but I can’t speak to ask for it.

I’m lost in these feelings.

He sits up for a second, on his knees. And then he splits my legs open. In one swift motion, he slides me forcibly towards him, my heat digging into the hardness beneath his slacks.

Holy shit…

I don’t want to shut my eyes, but my lids flutter with each rupturing nerve. His hand disappears beneath my panties, and he slips two large fingers inside of me, pulsing them with mastered speed.

“You’re incredibly wet, darling,” he says with a heavy breath. “You’ve been a bad girl, not giving your body what it craves.” He lifts me a little higher and rocks against me while he’s fully clothed. The force feels so damn good. He slaps the side of my thigh.

Fuck me.

My limbs are tight in his clutch, and it’s everything I can do not to scream. All the noises just lock tight in my chest. I think I’ve spent so much time holding in sounds when I touch myself that it’s hard to let go.

“Let me hear you.”

He rocks harder. I wish his pants were off. I wish I could see his ass that tightens as he pounds into me, in sync with his fingers.

He slaps me again, more towards my ass this time. I let out a wrangled cry that even surprises me.

“You liked that,” he says.

“God…yes…”

“God’s not in this bedroom, Rose.”

My arm covers my eyes. I barely hear his words. “Fuck…” My lips part in a silent scream. I clench my comforter, and a wetness seeps beneath my ass. I look up and see the tequila spilt all over the bed.

And I don’t even care.

“Connor,” I breathe. “…Connor…harder.”

I see his lips lift before my lids close again. And he obliges by quickening the movement of his fingers and slamming into me. Then his hand finds the length of my neck. I open my eyes as he wraps his fingers around my throat and squeezes so tight.