Chapter 18
Day Six
Campfire tonight?
-Trailer Daddy
You have to stop calling yourself that.
Yes to campfire.
-Dev
-Notes on the whiteboard, August 26th
Devon
“Six,” I count as Rhett throws another piece of popcorn in the air and catches it in his mouth. He’s doing a surprisingly decent job of catching them by the light of the fire. He makes a dramatic show of catching the next one, so I add as much drama to my voice as I can manage when I say, “seven.”
He holds another piece out between us. “How many more do you think I can get?”
The gravity he gives to the question has me laughing through my answer. “I’d be shocked if you made it higher than ten.”
“Is that a challenge, Devon Blake?” He smirks at me.
I smirk back. “It is.” After he called me out for late-night snuggling, the energy between us shifted. I’ve woken up lying across him almost every night since I’ve been here, and while I refuse to analyze why even my unconscious self is drawn to him, I haven’t tried to stop either. I’ll never understand what came over me, but last night I was fully awake when I rolled over to snuggle him, and he caught me immediately.
Today, he’s interpreted the interaction as permission to give me the full force of his attention. Flirting with me, smirking at me, touching me every chance he gets. I should throw that metaphorical wall between us right back up, but I’m having too much fun to cut it off.
“You should never doubt me.” He tosses another piece of popcorn and catches it perfectly in his mouth. “How many was that now?”
“Eight,” I giggle. I’m giggling.
“So, I only have to do two more to impress you,” he says, landing a ninth and tenth in succession.
I arch a brow. “Popcorn tosses are not the way to impress me.”
“No?” He tosses and catches another. “What about now that it’s eleven?”
“It’s not that hard to catch pieces of popcorn.” I’m not impressed, but the shared laughter is like a healing balm after months and months of stress.
“Not that hard,” He scoffs in mock offense. “I dare you to try to beat me.”
“Hand it over,” I reach for the bowl, throwing one up and catching it in my mouth as I come to standing.
“Show off,” he laughs, returning to his seat.
It’s a simple game, and I toss, catch and chew nine in a row with little effort as Rhett counts them off for me while grabbing beers for each of us from the cooler.
“Almost got you tied. What are you going to do then?” I ask, after catching the tenth.
He twists off the cap of my beer and sets it on the table between us. “First, let’s see if you can pull it off.”
I throw up the eleventh, and it barely misses my mouth, rolling down my chin to land in the cleavage of my fitted tank. “Now we’re tied.”
“We are not tied,” he steps closer to me, “but I am impressed.”
“You never said how I have to catch them.” I pull the errant piece of popcorn from my shirt and toss it in the fire.
His mouth drops open in offense. “Hey, I wanted that one.”
I roll my eyes and push playfully at his chest. “Don’t change the subject.”
He repeats his incorrect assertion. “The game was catching it in your mouth.”
“You never said that.” I shrug.
“That’s because you never set rules when we play games, even when I ask you to.” He takes the popcorn bowl from my hand, setting it next to my beer. “I even had to do it for our staring contest.”
He keeps doing this-bringing up that night. The first night we met. The first moment we met. He was charming and silly and nothing like the original guy I’d been on a date with. Nothing like any man in my life. Anyone in my life. He challenged me, and I couldn’t resist playing his game, being in his company. Just like now.
“Are we doing it again? Another staring contest?” Rhett asks, stepping even closer, so I have to tilt my head to maintain eye contact.
“No, we’re not,” I say, returning to my seat and leaving him to tower almost awkwardly above me. “We’re playing a far more juvenile game. Truth or Dare.”
“You have my attention,” his voice drips with salacious excitement as he returns to his own seat.
He has a point about needing structure, so I set some parameters. “Standard rules, and we each get one pass. But if we pass, we have to go with the alternate option the other person offers.”
“Anything off the table?” The predatory look in his eyes fills me with nervous excitement.
I shrug, flipping my hair over my shoulder. “Just don’t be a jerk.”
“Alright, I pick dare,” he gives the expected answer, accompanied by shamelessly running his eyes up and down my body.
I’ll start him off easy.“I dare you to go five minutes without looking at my boobs.”
“And if I can’t pull that off?” he asks.
“Forget the rules already, McCoy?” I giggle again. “Then you’d owe me a truth.”
He looks directly at my chest, smirks, and looks back to my face.
I shake my head, ready with a question. “Truth it is. This thing,” I wave a hand between us, “you’re always flirting with me, teasing me, telling me I’ll call you daddy—”
“You will,” he interjects, the command in his voice sending a tiny thrill to my stomach.
“You said I’d be calling you daddy and I’d be on my knees in that trailer—” I point toward the airstream that houses the bed we’ve been sharing. “By the end of a week.”
“It’s only day six,” he says, surprising me with his exact knowledge of how long I’ve been here. “Have a little faith.” He swipes his fingers through his slightly-too-long hair. “So, what’s my truth?”
I roll my eyes. “You trying to wife me up, or you just want to get your dick wet?”
He sputters a laugh around his sip of beer, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. “Are those my only two options?”
“Neither of them are options.” I toss and catch another piece of popcorn. “But I want to know what you’re after.”
He laughs, cocky, self-assured. “Then I’d go with the first and hope you wouldn’t leave me hanging on the second.”
That leaves me a little stunned. “You’re not supposed to lie.”
His thick brows, a few shades darker than his sandy blond hair, draw together briefly. “And you’re supposed to trust that I’m telling the truth.”
I can’t be understanding this correctly.“So, given the option between one night of sex with me, or a lifetime commitment, you’re picking commitment?”
“I would pick commitment if those were real choices you’d given me.” He tips the long neck of his beer bottle toward me. “But we’re only working with hypotheticals, remember?”
I hum an affirmative response, nodding, but his answer is a surprise. My intention was to get him to admit he only wants to hook up with me, but it backfired. If getting a sexy, impertinent man to admit he wants to commit to me counts as a bad thing. Which it has to.
“What’ll it be, mama?” His voice cuts through my contemplation and saves me from lingering on his answer. “Truth or dare?”
“Dare.”
“I dare you to call me daddy for the rest of the night. No Rhett. No McCoy.” Knew I shouldn’t have brought that up. I can just avoid addressing him for the rest of the night. Apparently sensing the direction of my thoughts, he adds, “And you have to say it at least five times.”
“Fine, daddy.” I get the first one out of way. “Truth or dare.”
His eyes are wide, jaw slack. I didn’t realize calling him daddy would give me the power to have him practically drooling in an instant, and I certainly didn’t anticipate the accompanying heat building me in my chest either.
Rhett
I’m in trouble.I knew I would like this. Knew this woman who carries herself with such power, such control, needed someone to be strong for her. To let her rest. What I didn’t plan for was the fact that every time she calls me daddy, my cock responds.
“Are you listening to me, daddy?” she asks, a teasing smirk on her lush lips. Fuck. She knows exactly what she’s doing to me.
I nod.
“Truth or dare?” she asks, seemingly not for the first time.
“Dare.” Dares are always more fun.
She raps her nails against the neck of her beer, considering. “I dare you to stop calling me mama for the rest of the night.”
Dammit. That’s not fun at all. “And if I mess up?”
“You can’t keep trying to get out of dares by saying you can’t do them.” She throws a piece of popcorn at me, bouncing it off my chest. “Don’t mess it up.”
“You won’t hear me call you mama until the morning.” I nod. “Your turn.”
“Truth.” Her voice carries a lightness I’m unaccustomed to.
Folding my hands behind my head, I lean back in my chair, stretching my legs out long until my shoes tap against the metal frame of the firepit. There are thousands of truths I want from her, but I’m starting with something fun. “Did your friends pack you a vibrator?”
“No,” she laughs, a bright, delicate sound-rare and beautiful like its owner. “Listen, my friends and I are close. Probably closer than most friends, but we draw the line at touching each other’s sex toys.”
It doesn’t surprise me that she answered so quickly and honestly, but hearing her talk about sex toys is making it even harder to keep my cool. “Well, damn. There goes the next dare I had in mind for you.”
She laughs again. “Very funny. What’ll it be next?”
“Dare.” I shrug.
“You’re picking a lot of dares. Are there truths you’re hiding from me, daddy?”
There it is again.I shift in my seat. “Not hiding a thing. Dares are more fun.”
“This is getting hard.” She drums her fingers on the arm of her chair, considering.
“You ready for another?” I ask, pointing to her beer.
She passes me the empty bottle but asks to switch to lemonade, which I happily grant, giving her time to consider her next move. When I return with our drinks, she’s smirking again. Good.
“Got something for me?” I ask, leaning back into my low chair.
“I do,” she nods. “I dare you to show me the search history on your phone.” A loud pop and a spark crackle from the fire, like an exclamation point on the end of her dare.
“That is a good one.” I run my fingers back through my hair.
“Hand it over, daddy,” she reaches forward, folding her fingers toward herself in a gimme it motion.
Reaching out, I take the opportunity to hold her outstretched hand in mine, then smile. “Pass.”
Her tiny, surprised gasp is worth using my one pass. Let her wonder. Truth is, I’ve been searching for information about her. Trying to figure out what went down between her and Trina. If she could actually be about to lose her business. What I might do to help. She would be livid if she knew, and the game would be ruined.
“A truth then.” She’s quick with an alternative. “What’s something you regret?”
Everything I have is a result of choices I’ve made. If I don’t like the outcome of something, it’s almost always my fault. My job to fix it. Even though I don’t generally dwell in regret, there is one thing that’s been keeping me awake at night for months. “Letting you get away that night.”
Her mouth drops open in surprise, but she’s quick to twist it into a teasing grin. “And what would you have done if you’d caught me?”
Instead of answering, I grab another log from the woodpile and add it to the fire. She stares at me impatiently as I stoke it back to a steady burn. “You’re not getting two answers out of me on one question.” I tell her, as I shift a log and more sparks fly up to join the smoke. “Your turn.”
She watches me, assessing until I return to my seat and then leans forward in her chair. I match her motion, bringing us closer together, but not close enough. “Truth.”
When I first built these chairs and set them up around the firepit I imagined it would be nice to have space, so people wouldn’t have to sit too close to each other. But in this moment, it’s killing me that she’s too far away to touch.
I slow my voice, wanting her to catch the gravity in my next question. “Why did you run away from me that night?”
Her response is quick and defensive. “I didn’t run away.”
“You’re being pedantic.” The furrow in her sharp brows shows me I’m not the first person to make that accusation. “Why did you leave?”
She worries her lip between her teeth in a move I’ve never seen her make before, taking her time to give me an answer. “I guess I just came to my senses. You know me a bit at this point.” She pauses for a moment. “At least enough to understand that I wasn’t being myself that night.”
Her words settle like rocks in my stomach. “I don’t understand that.”
Her brows furrow in confusion. “Rhe-daddy,” she laughs quietly at the correction. It could serve to cut some of the seriousness from our conversation, but I don’t allow that. I hold her stare, and she finally continues. “I barely ever drink more than one or two drinks at a time. I don’t go on impromptu dates with magnetic strangers who have panty-melting smiles. I don’t stay out past 8:30 on a work night, let alone break into country clubs after midnight.” With each item she lists, her words grow more fervent, looking to me to agree with her, but I refuse. “I don’t skinny dip in public after breaking into said country club. And I don’t make out with strangers. Ever. That wasn’t me that night, and when I realized how out of character I was acting, I had to get back to reality.”
“It was real to me,” I respond.
We watch each other in the soft glow of firelight, for a minute that stretches like an hour, but then the wind shifts, blowing a cloud of thick smoke into her face. While she’s sputtering and batting it away, I lean forward, all the way off my chair, grab onto the legs of hers and drag it across the pavers, out of the smoke, and right next to me. Her eyes widen and her mouth rounds out into a satisfying O shape.
She’s close enough now that I could hold both of her hands in mine, but I doubt she’d allow it yet. “I saw a magnificent blonde, with the longest, sexiest legs I’d ever seen put some finance bro in his place, and then by a stroke of luck I’ll never understand, but always be grateful for, you let me have the rest of your evening.” The barest hint of a smile tugs at her lips. “You stayed up late, broke into a country club, and went skinny dipping with me. You did those things. You don’t get to say it wasn’t you.” Her sapphire eyes widen when my voice becomes more insistent. “That’s a cop out. You’re far too strong to write it off as a mistake. You’re in control of yourself, your choices, everything. You knew exactly what you were doing, and you did it on purpose.”
A heavy silence falls between us, one I’m not eager to fill. She reaches her hand out, and my eyes drop to her movement. I watch, mesmerized as she begins lightly tracing lines over the top of my hand up over to the sensitive skin of my wrist with her manicured nails. After a few passes, she asks, “Truth or dare?” catching me off guard. I’d forgotten we were playing.
“Dare,” I answer, willing her to keep her hand on mine.
Her answer is immediate. “Whatever it is you would have done if you’d caught up to me that night—” My eyes lock to hers. “I dare you to do it right now.”
In an instant, I’m standing, drawing her up to join me with the hand she was just teasing, and using the other to brace her low back. The orange glow of the campfire lights up one side of her face, sparks reflecting in her twilight eyes. Dropping her hand on my shoulder, I cup her face, rubbing my thumb along her jaw. “The first thing I would have done is ask for your number.” She laughs again, her body rocking against mine.
“And after that?” She blinks up at me, running her tongue across her lips.
I tilt her face up to meet mine, and she closes her eyes, surrendering to me. It’s natural to have her in my arms, vulnerable to my proximity, like we’ve been here a thousand times before, instead of once. I stop just short of kissing her and speak against her lips. “You don’t get to wake up tomorrow and say this wasn’t you.” She hums in response, pulling me closer with her hands at my back.
“Say it, Dev,” I command. “Admit that this is you.” She presses her lips into mine, but I pull back. “I mean it.”
She huffs a frustrated little breath, and I think I’ve lost her. But she doesn’t pull away, and when she speaks it’s a whisper between our lips. “It’s me. I want you to kiss me.”
I’m stealing her kiss before she has the last word out, her lips as soft and supple as her body in my arms as they press back into mine. She belongs here, and this time I’m not letting her go.
Her hands tangle in the hair at the base of my neck, and my hand begins to travel from her waist, lower. But I stop myself. I’m still not sure what spooked her last time, so I shift gears, wrapping my arm all the way around her slim waist instead, my fingertips pressing into her side. She leans in tighter to my hold, and the slightest sound of moaned pleasure vibrates through our joined mouths.
Her hands trail down my shoulder blades, and across my low back, resting at the hem of my shirt, like she might try to pull it off. I release the kiss. I rushed it last time, and she disappeared. I won’t let that happen again. Pulling back, I hold her stare. “You’re a goddess,” I whisper into the space between us.
Her face is unreadable. I smile, hoping it’s the one she called panty-melting. Her eyes widen, and she nibbles at her bottom lip. Yeah, this has to be the one.
“Dare,” she says, releasing my hips and dropping her lithe body back into her chair, reminding me again of the game I keep forgetting we’re playing.
“You got it, maw-am.” I catch myself halfway through her usual nickname and switch to ma’am as I’m returning to my own chair.
“That was a close one, daddy,” she teases.
“I knew you were gonna love calling me that.” I lean back in my chair, folding one arm behind my head.
She taps her foot against mine. “I do not.”
I tap her foot back. “You’re past the required number of five.”
“Am I, daddy?” The teasing tone returns to her voice. “I haven’t been keeping track.”
Looks like I just outed myself for keeping track. Whoops. I change the subject. “I dare you not to wear panties tomorrow.”
She sputters a laugh. “It has to be something for tonight.”
“You didn’t say that in the rules.”
“It’s how truth or dare works.”
“Okay, I dare you to take your panties off now.”
Without hesitation, she stands up, holding my stare as she slowly unbuttons her top button, then the next and the next, until her army green shorts are folded open, pulled down far enough to reveal the solid black fabric of what she wears underneath. She tucks her thumbs into the waistband. “These?” she asks.
“Unless you’ve got another pair under those,” I answer. “Take them off.”
She doesn’t go inside the trailer or walk around to hide herself behind her chair. Instead, she says, “Yes, daddy.” Torturing me further, she turns her back to me and pushes her shorts over her hips, dropping them in the seat of her chair and leaving her black panty-clad ass less than a foot from my face. She keeps going, sliding her underwear down slowly, teasingly, revealing the full rounds of her cheeks, and then she bends, bringing her ass even closer to my face, along with the bared lips of her sex. Holy fucking hell.
Before I can fully enjoy the sight of her, green fabric covers her again, and she turns around, buttoning them back over her bare body.
“You’re up,” she says, gracefully sliding back into her chair.
“You want my panties?” She arches a brow at me. “I mean, my boxers.”
“Not particularly.” She laughs, unrestrained. “Truth or dare?”
I swallow audibly, still trying to catch my breath. “Truth.”
Her hand runs over mine again, tracing my knuckles with her nails. “Did abandoning your life in Texas make you happy?”
My hackles raise. “I didn’t abandon anything.” I made a choice to change my life, and among other things, it led me to her. “But yeah, I’m happy in Palm Springs.” I answer.
She purses her lips, and part of me wishes she’d push further. I want to share more with her. But she moves on, picking, “Truth.”
She told me a secret once a long time ago and asked me never to bring it up again. But I think about it constantly. Is she doing okay? Is she going to lose Friday West? What happened between her and Trina? If there’s ever a time to find out, it’s now, when her guard is down, and she’s challenged us both to tell the truth. “Do you really think Trina could cost you your business?”
Her back straightens, face going tight, jaw clenching, like she’s putting up a literal wall of defense. “I told you never to bring that up.”
“A couple months ago,” my reason sounds ridiculous as it exits my mouth, “and we weren’t playing truth or dare then.”
“I should never have told you that,” she says more to herself than me as she stands up.
“Are you using your pass?” I ask, leaning forward.
“You’re missing the point.” She doesn’t make eye contact with me, not even to glare. “I don’t talk to anyone about this, and I told you never to ask about it. You broke a rule.”
“What rule?”
She walks back to the trailer, saying, “Don’t be a jerk.”