Page 101 of Illicit Games

“It’s done. We’ll form a plan.” They nod with bright grins. I raise my glass. “Let’s cheers to this.”

We throw back our drinks in one go after clinking our glasses.

Rosalie loudly clears her throat, a dirty glint forming in her dark eyes as she pins them on me. “Forgot to ask themostimportant question.”

“I’m sorry,” I feign tiredness, rising to my knees, “The jet lag is catching up to—”

“No, no, miss.” She points to the floor. “Sit your ass back down.”

“You know better,” jests Bianca.

Crap. I plop back down. “All right! All right! Give it to me.”

“Like he did for an entire week?” Rosalie waggles her eyebrows.

“Day and night!” sings Bianca.

I hide my face in my palms, blushing hard. “Shut up!”

They don’t.

“Is he a dirty talker? Did he make you come? Did he go down on you? Oooh… is he kinky in the sheets?”

“The silent ones are the freakiest,” muses Bianca. “All that broodiness, he must let loose in the bedroom.”

Rosalie’s voice pitches low as she curiously asks, “How does sex work for you both? Like, what position? Does he hold you up against the wall? How much does he have to bend?”

Bianca and I gasp in unison. “Rosa!”

“What? It’s for research purposes.” She says it like we’re overreacting. “Besides, I went through a similar interrogation last year. It’s my turn. At least, mine is a legit reason. Yours was nonsense.”

“Christ!” I mutter.

“Who else am I going to ask these questions to frankly?” grumbles Rosa in mock offense. “I’ve always wanted to write a couple with a height and size difference. It’s purely for research.”

“I’m not that short.”

“Sweetie, you’re five-foot-one. You’re like a mosquito buzzing around that mountain of a man. One wrong move, he might just squash you with the tip of his finger.”

I smirk. “Yeah, well, I’m very bendy.”

The three of us burst out laughing. Hours pass as they tease me and ask every detail about the trip. And I’ve never been happier.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Kian

In her haste to leave with her friends, Iris left her phone behind, which I only realized after I sent her the first text and it buzzed in my pocket. Leaving me in a sour mood because there was no way for me to hear her angelic voice. Or text her the whole day.

Rather than catching up with countless reports, emails, and urgent crises, my head was buried in my phone as I stared at our pictures from our trip. My gallery is full of her smiling face, more often than not blushing.

I was very tempted to reach her on Seth’s phone, but I didn’t want to disturb her while she was with her best friends. Especially after she told me things were a little tense between them since she was keeping too many secrets.

I have to constantly remind myself I can’t keep her all to myself twenty-four seven, like our week in Seattle. Unlike me, she has people and a support system. Spending time with them is important to her, which means it’s important to me too. Nonetheless, her evenings and nights are mine, which I won’t share with anyone else.

“Would you stop tapping your foot? I’m already driving over the speed limit,” complains Dash from the driver’s seat. “Cars are yet to turn into rockets.”

I stop instantly.