This Is War - Chapter 33 – Visions of Sugarcocks
Waiting for the safe to open at midnight was pure torture. It was like I was a kid on Christmas morning. Only it was neither Christmas nor morning, I was an adult, and my present was going to be a big, juicy dick.
So really it was nothing like Christmas morning. But the excitement was real.
I had hoped to fall asleep right after devouring the entire plate of pork - which, by the way, was even better than I had imagined - but sleep evaded me.
Instead I just nestled snug in my bed, while visions of sugarcocks danced in my head.
Ew, not sugarcocks. That reminded me too much of Joe and his sugarcakes.
Which then reminded me of the video I had of him cheating on Sierra.
I still hadn’t decided exactly what to do with that.
Sure, I could just show it to Sierra. The look on her face when she watched it would be priceless.
And then the look on Joe’s face when she dumped his cheating ass.
But I could also just hold onto the tape. Let Sierra marry him. And then show it to her a few years later and blow the whole thing up.
Hmmm…decisions, decisions.
There was no time to decide though, because MY ALARM JUST WENT OFF! It’s freaking midnight!
Well, it was almost midnight. I’d set my alarm for 11:45 so that I’d have time to fix my hair and makeup before the safe opened. To have my makeup be anything less than impeccable would have been a horrible disservice to my extremely sexy panda pajamas.
I kept glancing over at the safe in the tub.
Yes, the tub. I’d moved it there before bed in case it was a bomb.
Or a squirrel. Either would be best contained by the bathtub.
It was like they always said on the news: during a missile crisis or rodent uprising, the safest place to be was the bathtub.
This was kind of the opposite scenario, but it still felt like sage advice.
As my phone ticked down to midnight, I hid behind the door and watched the safe.
Three, two, one…
Midnight was punctuated by a small click .
Well that was anticlimactic. I’d expected the safe to blow open and spew confetti all over the room. Maybe play some music. Or at least light up. But nope. All I got was a little click.
I crept over, still not totally convinced that it wasn’t going to blow up, and gently opened the safe. Inside was a white leather box with ODEGAARD scrawled in blue letters. But it wasn’t a shoebox like the ones Tanner had sent to my apartment. Instead, it was a thin rectangular clothing box.
I tore the lid off to see what kind of kinky lingerie he wanted me to wear for our first time.
Shockingly, it wasn’t lingerie at all. Instead, it just looked like a little pile of shiny black sequins.
Like…so shiny. The shiniest. I didn’t even understand how something so black could be so shiny. But it was.
I begrudgingly stripped off my panda pajamas and tried on the dress. As with every Odegaard design I’d tried on, it fit like a glove. Actually, it fit like a really short, sexy, strapless cocktail dress. And the matching gloves that came with it fit like gloves.
I looked in the mirror and checked out my ass. If I did say so myself, I looked classy AF.
The only thing I was missing was some shoes. But thanks to Tanner’s ridiculous suitcase full of camp-inappropriate clothes, I had plenty of options. I was in the midst of trying on some sky-high black pumps when the doorbell buzzed.
“I’m coming!” I yelled, even though I doubted he could hear me at the bottom of the tower.
This is it. I smoothed my dress and took one last look in the mirror before boarding the elevator. Don’t tell him you love him. Don’t tell him you love him.
The doors slid open and Tanner…
Nope.
Not Tanner.
For some reason, Cole was standing there.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Picking you up for our date,” he said with his cockiest smile. “And let me just say…” His eyes scanned up and down my body. “You look absolutely stunning.”
“Uh, no. I don’t think so.” Sorry bud, I have a date with Tanner.
"No? Then why did you do your makeup all sexy and put on the dress I got you?”
I looked down and pulled at the expensive fabric. “This? You didn’t get me this.”
“Yes I did.”
“But it’s an Odegaard.”
“It is. That’s what you always wear, right?”
“Wait, you really went out and bought this for me?” What the hell is going on right now?
“Yup.”
I just stared at him.
“Shall we?” He held out his arm for me.
“Shall we what?”
“Go on our date. If we don’t leave soon, we’re gonna be late.”
“I’m not going on a date with you.”
“Yes you are.” He said it with all the confidence in the world.
“And why would I do a thing like that?”
He raised an eyebrow and gestured to his torso. “Look at me. What girl wouldn’t want to go on a date with me?”
“Hmmm…I don’t know. Me?” I would never admit it, but he did look damn fine in his tuxedo. It was a shame he was such an asshole. And more importantly, he wasn’t Tanner. Who would be here any minute now. Right? “If you really got me this dress, then what size is it?”
“Two.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “How’d you know that?”
“Because I bought it for you. And if you’re asking how I knew your size in the first place…well, I’ve ruined enough dresses and had to buy replacements that I can guess a woman’s size nine times out of ten.”
“Ruined dresses? Replacements?”
He nodded. “If you’re lucky maybe I’ll ruin your dress later tonight.”
“How?” I kind of regretted asking, but I was too curious. “Are you going to spill a drink on me or something?”
“You could say that.”
I wasn’t sure exactly what he meant by that, but the look in his eye confirmed that it was definitely a sexy spill rather than a clumsy one. I was more concerned by his earlier statement though. About him really buying it for me. Because that meant…
Shit.
Tanner had really run away. And then Cole had sent me the creepy elevator package, but I’d stupidly assumed that it was from Tanner. And now I was standing here, wearing the $3000 dress that Cole had bought for me.
“Ready to go?” he asked.
“You’re really not listening, are you? I said I wasn’t going.”
“Yeah, but that’s not really your choice. You owe me a date.”
“From what?”
“Our bet.”
I laughed. “Nice try, but you lost the bet. In fact, you’re lucky I don’t demand that you get naked right here.”
“I’ll be happy to get naked any time you want. But not because of the bet. The second you cheated, you automatically lost the bet.”
“I didn’t cheat.” Oh no. How did he know about Nigel’s slingshot?
“And now you’re lying too. Pro tip: if you’re gonna lie, you have to learn to look the person in the eye when you do it. Now can we please get going?”
“I’m. Not. Going.” I hit the UP button on the elevator.
I still hadn’t fully processed the fact that Tanner had indeed left, but I had a feeling a breakdown was coming.
And I was out of pork. Which meant I had no food to drown my sorrows in.
So I was probably going to rip up my mattress like a wild, starving animal. Oh no. I already felt hungry again…
Cole stuck his hand in to stop the door from closing. “Are you mad about earlier? Is that it?”
“Uh, yeah. You could say that.”
“Why?”
“Because you were going to spit roast me with some rando!”
“Those weren’t randos. Those were my friends.”
“That might make it worse. I’m not sure. Either way, you’re a despicable pervert.”
“Guilty as charged. But in my defense, I thought you were too.”
“And what would give you that idea?”
“Well…you did strip down for a bunch of high schoolers at Club Onyx. And you made your little boy toy pleasure you on stage while you watched your best friend get spit roasted.”
My face turned into a bright red tomato. Kill me now. I had been hoping that no one had seen that. If Cole saw it, that meant everyone probably had.
“Has anyone ever told you how cute you are when you get embarrassed?” he asked.
I punched his arm. Ow. Were his arms made out of bricks? “I hate you.”
“You won’t after our date. Come on, we’re gonna have so much fun.”
I wanted to say no. To tell him I was with Tanner.
But the truth was, Tanner had left me. Again.
And tonight I could either sit in my bed, eating twice my weight in pork and trying not to let my meat get wet from my tears and that was only if I was lucky enough to find more pork, or…
I stared at Cole. I could go on a stupid date with stupid Cole to get my mind off of stupid Tanner.
And honestly, the fact that Cole bought me this dress and went out of his way to surprise me made my heart skip a beat.
Yes, he was cocky. But maybe I needed a date with a cocky guy tonight.
He put his hand out for me.
“If I go on this date with you,” I said, “you have to promise me three things.”
“Name your terms.”
I held up a finger. “First, you have to promise not to spit roast me.”
“I promise I won’t spit roast you,” he said with a smile. “Even if you beg for it.”
God, why had I let Tanner finger me in front of a whole group of people? Now everyone knew I was a kinky bitch. “How gentlemanly of you.”
“I try. What’s next?”
I held up a second finger. “Second, you have to promise that I won’t end up naked.”
“What you do with your clothes is strictly up to you. But I promise that I won’t remove your clothing without your permission.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. That wasn’t exactly what I asked him to promise. “So you won’t trick me into flashing a group of high schoolers?”
“Hey, you did that on your own…”
“Promise you won’t trick me into getting naked.”
“Okay, fine. I promise.”
“Good.” I put up my third finger. “And third, promise that you will still honor our bet and get naked whenever I want. I’m agreeing to this date of my own volition, not because you won a bet. Which you didn’t. You lost.”
He nodded. “Even though you cheated, I did technically lose. So I promise to honor our bet.”
“Alright then. You sir have yourself a date.”
He scooped me up.
I squealed. Oh my God, what is he doing?
He laughed and carried me over to his golf cart. Then set me gently down onto the seat.
Oh. He was just being wonderfully gentlemanly. Hmm. Usually whenever he acted like a gentleman he immediately pulled one over on me. There was no way I was going to fall for his games again.
“I should warn you, though,” I said as he drove. “If you ever break a promise to me, I’ll kick you in the nuts so hard that you’ll wish you were never born.” Just because he was suddenly being a gentleman, it didn’t mean I trusted him.
“Seems fair. But I also have a warning for you. Those promises only apply to this date. Because let me be very clear - on our next date, I am going to get you naked. And you may not be ready for it yet, but I saw you on stage. One day soon, you’re going to beg me to spit roast you.”