Someday, if we made it out of all this trouble, I wanted to use a blindfold on him again. And then I’d do much naughtier things to him than those I had planned for tonight.
The tight heat inside my core doubled when Z didn’t straighten from his crouch but spun back around on his tip toes, still bent, his face level with my stomach, and reached for me. One of his hands found each of my hips, settling on top of my jeans, and for a long, drawn-out moment the sexual chemistry boiled between us and the dark hallway grew hot, steamy.
Until he ruined the moment. Because he was Z and that was what he did. His hands on my hips shook me back and forth as he demanded, in a plaintive six-year-old’s tone, “Tell me! Tell me! Tell me!”
I laughed, my hands going to his thick shoulders. “No! This is your first date and it’s a surprise. You wanted seduction. Part of that seduction includes surprises.”
My Firefly jutted out his lower lip in a pout that had worked a million times before because it was so god-damned fucking cute.
I couldn’t resist. I leaned down and nipped that lip of his. But then I bopped him on his perfect nose. “No. Now stand up and follow me.”
Grumbling under his breath, Zavier stood. “Are we playing Blindman’s Buff?” He reached for me, deliberately feeling around my torso until one hand cupped my breast, then squeezed it through my shirt. “Shouldn’t you be naked for that game?”
I laughed and pulled his hand off me. I linked our fingers—mostly to stop him from groping elsewhere—as I said, “Try again.”
“Seven minutes in heaven?”
“Nope.” I tugged him down the hall and he padded after me like a good boy.
“Sex Jenga?”
I burst out laughing. “What the hell is that?”
“You write a sex act on each block and whichever block you pull, you have to do what’s on there.”
My nipples grew hard just imagining that. “Unfortunately, no.” I added Sex Jenga to the list of must-have dates with Z.
“Strip beer pong?”
“You’re making me regret what I actually chose for our date.” I lifted my free hand and almost chewed on my fingernail but Z tugged me to a stop just outside my bedroom door.
He wrapped his arm around me, but he used our linked hands so that my own arm ended up trapped behind me. I felt penned in, but I liked it, as he brought me close. “No. No regrets.” His voice was soft, all hints of teasing gone. “I’m gonna love it. You know why?”
I swallowed hard, wishing that stupid blindfold wasn’t covering his gorgeous brown eyes as I stared up at him. My heart started to thud faster when he didn’t break the moment with jokes. “Why?”
Z leaned down carefully, using his free hand to slide up my side blindly, tracing up my neck until he reached my face. He stroked my cheek for a moment before he smiled softly. “Because, sweetheart, this is my first ever official date.”
My chest nearly exploded; it felt like a flock of birds taking flight all at once, all in different directions. “Your first …”
Z nodded and continued to cup my cheek.
Elation and nerves lit me up like a stadium. Bam. “So, no pressure,” I said dryly.
“There is no pressure,” Z agreed. “Because it’s with you. It’ll be perfect.”
I groaned. “Why won’t you just sleep with me already?” God, how could he even say things like that and not expect me to jump his bones?
Z laughed and swept me in all the way to his chest, giving me a tight hug. Then he unlaced our fingers so he could swat my ass. “Because I’m enjoying making you work for it, woman. Now, give me my damn surprise!”
I turned the doorknob and swung open the door to my bedroom. I gently guided Z inside. And then I whipped the blindfold off his eyes.
“Surprise!” I said.
Z stared at my room silently for a moment, blinking. He took in the space and my changes to it. I’d shoved my mattress up against one wall on its side. There was no bed frame, so that had left the floor open. I’d rolled up the cheap brown rug and shoved it into the closet. So Z was staring down at a wooden floor decorated with red solo cups all tipped onto their sides and numbered with marker.
His forehead wrinkled and his brow shot up. “Uh …”
I laughed at his confusion as I grabbed the two yardsticks by the door that I’d magicked into golf clubs.
I handed him a blue putter and kept a pink one for myself.
Immediately, his eyes brightened. “Oh, we’re playing golf.”
I gave a little shrug. “Yeah. Um. Andros told me it was what your parents did on their first date.” My eyes scanned the sad little set up. I’d used magic, so he had a couple surprises. A cup that would pop out with googly eyes and say “yuck” before spitting his ball back at him. Another that would say, “Oh yeah, balls deep, baby.” But it wasn’t real mini-golf. I couldn’t give that to him. We were trapped inside for the foreseeable future—which was my fault. So poor Z got a half date.
I reached over to my dresser to grab the “golf balls.” I’d had to write a spell to shrink a bowling ball and a tennis ball that I’d scrounged out of the closets here. “Which one?” I asked, letting him have first pick.
But when I looked over at Z, his eyes were shining with tears. Our gazes met and an earthquake happened between us, the entire world shifted and our hearts collided with that look. A tear streaked down Z’s cheek and he dropped his putter.
“Z?” I barely got the syllable out of my mouth before he was on me. His lips devoured mine. His hips slammed into me and pinned me against the dresser. He bent me backward over it as his tongue plunged into my mouth. I dropped our golf balls. I dropped my putter. Both my hands reached up and wrapped around his neck as he kissed me like he was starving, like he was about to die and I was his final meal. His hands grabbed me, traced me, squeezed me, then traced me again, like he was so frantic that he didn’t know what to do with them. I lifted my leg and wrapped it around his back and he grabbed it, squeezing my thigh as he pressed against me.
He groaned. And then he pulled away. He held out a hand and helped me slide off the dresser. Then he swiped at his cheek, removing the evidence of his lone tear. “Fuck, Hales. You play dirty.” He bent and grabbed his putter. “You’re a dirty girl,” his tone turned teasing but I could tell it was forced.
But if he wanted a lighter moment instead of a heavier one then that was what I would give him. “Yeah, well, I wanna play dirty—but somebody’s cunt-blocking me.”
“What kind of dick would cunt-block?” Z asked, going around me and collecting our golf balls.
“I dunno. A defective one, I guess. I think most dicks are pretty pro-cunt.”
“Nah, maybe it’s just a picky dick, one who likes to tease, one who’s in it for the long game.”
“Is there such a thing? I thought dicks claimed anything they pointed at,” I gave him a silly face as I showed him the tape I’d put down on the floor to mark the spot where we had to stand. I pointed to the first solo cup, marked in permanent ink with a black number one so he knew his target.
Z set down his ball—he’d chosen the mini bowling ball—and lined up his shot as he retorted, “Maybe smaller dicks do that, but when you’re carrying around a weapon of ass destruction, you’ve gotta act responsibly.”