Chapter 11 — My Boyfriend #3
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The dare cards came out late enough for the room to think it was a brilliant idea and early enough that nobody had started making truly terrible decisions yet.
Avery stood on the coffee table with a black-and-pink deck in one hand and a drink in the other.
"Couple dares," she announced. "Rules are simple. You draw, you do the dare with your actual partner, or you take a drink and admit why you're a coward."
"Harsh," Miles said.
"Hosting is leadership," Avery said. "Leadership requires cruelty."
"Put that on a mug," Sienna said.
People gathered in the living room, couples claiming couches, chairs, floor space, and laps. Penny didn't hesitate. She took my hand, led me to one end of the sectional, and sat sideways across my thighs before I had fully committed to the idea of survival.
The dress rode up.
Not a little.
Her bare thigh stretched across my lap, smooth and warm under the hem, the slit falling open so high that my hand, resting where any normal boyfriend's hand might rest, was suddenly within inches of bad decisions.
Penny looked at my face and smiled.
"Problem?"
"Several."
"Good."
The first few cards were exactly what Avery promised. Kiss your partner somewhere that isn't their mouth. Whisper something that makes them blush. Sit in your partner's lap for the next round, which Penny was already doing, because Penny Rourke didn't wait for permission when she had a better idea.
When it was our turn, Avery drew a card and read it with theatrical delight.
"Partner A kisses Partner B's neck for thirty seconds. No breaking contact."
Sienna sat up straighter. "Oh, I support this."
Penny turned in my lap and swept her hair over one shoulder.
The side of her neck was pale and smooth. The scent of her perfume was stronger there, warm under the vanilla, threaded with skin and heat. I put one hand at her waist and the other on her bare thigh to steady her.
Then I put my mouth under her ear.
She inhaled.
Not for the room. Not for the dare. For me.
I kissed her once, slow, then opened my mouth against her skin and let my tongue touch the place where her pulse beat fastest. Her fingers clamped around my wrist. The room made noise, whistles and laughter and Avery counting too loudly, but Penny went quiet in a way that told me every second was landing.
At fifteen seconds, she shifted on my lap.
At twenty, her ass pressed back against my cock.
At twenty-five, her nails dug into my forearm and she whispered, "Luke."
The timer went off.
I lifted my mouth from her neck, and Penny looked like she had forgotten we weren't alone.
The room loved it.
Of course the room loved it. Penny in that dress, flushed and breathing harder, sitting in my lap while I tried not to look like I was one wrong movement away from losing the rest of my discipline, was exactly the kind of thing dare cards had been invented to produce.
"Commercial for monogamy," Sienna said.
Miles nodded. "Strong campaign."
Penny laughed, but she didn't move off my lap.
The next round gave another couple a dance. Then a kiss. Then a whispered confession that made half the room scream because whatever had been said clearly worked.
Then Penny drew.
She read the card, and her eyes lifted to mine.
"What?" I asked.
She handed it to me.
Direct your partner's hand somewhere that makes the room jealous.
I looked at her.
Penny's smile went slow.
"We can drink," I said.
"We can."
"That wasn't agreement."
"No." She leaned closer, her lips brushing the shell of my ear. "It was mercy. I'm not feeling merciful."
She took my right hand.
The room noticed immediately. Conversations thinned. Avery made an excited sound and slapped Sienna's knee. Rhett, from the far side of the circle, stopped pretending not to watch. Noelle's eyes fixed on my hand like she could move it by wanting hard enough.
Penny placed my palm on her thigh.
High.
Higher than public sense allowed.
My fingers spread over the inside of her leg, skin hot and impossibly smooth.
The slit in the dress hid just enough to keep the room from seeing exactly where I was touching her, but not enough to hide what kind of touch it was.
Penny's hand covered mine and pressed me inward, up, until my fingertips were tucked under the edge of the red fabric and close enough to the heat between her legs that my vision narrowed.
She held me there.
Then she looked around the room with that polished Penny calm, as if my hand wasn't under her dress, as if my cock wasn't hard beneath her ass, as if every man there hadn't just learned the difference between looking at her and being allowed to touch her.
"Jealous?" she asked.
Avery put a hand over her heart. "Deeply."
Sienna pointed at us. "Anti-swap couple. I'm telling you."
Penny's fingers tightened over mine.
I bent close enough for only her to hear me.
"When I get you home, I'm taking this dress off you slowly," I whispered. "With my hands first. Then my mouth. And every place you've made me think about tonight, I'm going to taste until you can't remember anyone in that room ever existed."
Penny went still.
Her body didn't move, but I felt the reaction through her thigh, through the hand covering mine, through the tiny shiver that went straight into my bloodstream.
"Luke," she whispered.
"That's for later."
She swallowed.
"You're cruel."
"Trying."
"Try more."
The room didn't hear the words. It saw the result. Penny flushed, her green eyes dark, my hand still high under the dress, both of us breathing like the air had changed composition.
Then Rhett said, "I have an idea."
The shift was instant.
Not dramatic. Not enough to kill the party. But enough for Penny's hand to tighten around mine.
Rhett lounged back in his chair, drink balanced between two fingers, smile easy in the way men smile when they are about to ask for something they have no right to ask for.
"The partner stuff is cute," he said. "But if we're doing dares, we should actually do dares."
Avery's expression sharpened. "Rhett."
"What?" He held up one hand. "I'm saying one round. Cross-couple. People can pass if they want."
Noelle, sitting beside him, tilted her head and looked at me. "That sounds fun."
Penny didn't move.
Neither did I.
Rhett's eyes moved to her. "Come on. One dance. One kiss. Whatever the card says. Old friends catching up."
"We're not old friends," Penny said.
His smile didn't drop. "We could be."
My hand was still under Penny's dress. That was the only thing keeping me calm, which made no sense and was completely true.
Her warmth under my palm. Her fingers over mine.
The quiet pressure of her body telling me she was here, with me, choosing me in a room full of people who suddenly wanted to see whether choice could bend.
Noelle leaned forward, eyes on me. "One round, Luke. You don't seem scared."
"I'm not scared."
"Then what's the problem?"
Penny lifted my hand out from under her dress, but she didn't let go. She threaded her fingers through mine and rested our joined hands on her thigh where everyone could see them.
"The problem," she said, calm and clear, "is that we don't want to."
Rhett laughed once. "That's it?"
"That's it."
"It's just a game."
"Then it's easy to lose."
Sienna made a noise under her breath that sounded like admiration trying to stay quiet.
Avery stepped down from the coffee table, watching the circle carefully. "Partner dares are the default. Cross-couple is only if both couples opt in. Nobody has to."
"Nobody's forcing anything," Rhett said, but his eyes were still on Penny. "I'm just surprised. You never used to be this traditional."
That was the wrong thing to say.
I felt it in Penny before she answered. The soft heat in her turned precise. Her spine straightened. Her thumb moved over my knuckles once.
"I'm not traditional," she said. "I'm taken."
The room went quiet enough that the music from the kitchen seemed louder.
She kept going, voice even, almost warm. "Luke isn't available for Noelle. I'm not available for you. We're not judging anyone else. If other couples want to play that way, have fun. But we're not tradeable."
Noelle's mouth curved, but it was thinner now. "Not even for one dare?"
Penny looked at her. "Not even for one second."
My chest went tight.
There were a hundred things I could have said. A hundred ways to make it bigger, louder, more territorial. But Penny had the room. Penny had me. She had just drawn the line in a voice so calm it made every other sound feel messy.
So I backed her instead of taking over.
"What she said," I told Noelle. "I'm with Penny. That's not flexible."
Rhett's gaze flicked from me to our hands to Penny's face. "Lucky man."
"Yes," I said. “I'm more than aware.”
No joke. No softening.
Penny's fingers squeezed mine.
For one second, Rhett looked like he might push again. Then Miles leaned forward from the arm of the couch.
"I volunteer as tribute for the next normal card," he said. "Before this room gets too educational."
The tension broke.
Not gone. Not erased. But loosened enough for Avery to snatch the next card and declare that Miles had to let someone style his hair with whatever was in a purse, which Sienna accepted as a sacred calling. People laughed. Drinks moved. Someone put on a louder song.
The party kept going.
That mattered.
Penny stayed in my lap for three more rounds, my hand on her thigh, her back against my chest, the red dress a dangerous scrap of fabric between my palm and everything I wanted.
Rhett didn't push again. Noelle stopped aiming her smile like a weapon, though I caught her looking once or twice.
Avery recovered her host energy. Sienna gave Penny a look that said she had seen everything and approved.
Miles ended up with glitter in his hair and accepted his fate with grace.
Penny tilted her head back against my shoulder.
"We should leave soon," she murmured.
"Because of Rhett?"
"No." Her mouth brushed my jaw. "Because of you."
That was worse.
Better.
Both.
***