Page 82 of New Nebraska Heat

He gestured for the guys to follow him as he headed for the front entry wall, and I hopped off my barstool.

“You ask us questions you want the answers to,” Seb continued to Serenity, “and Dagger makes sure we tell the full truth. If we do, we take a step closer to you, if not, we take a step back. The person who reaches you first gives you the dare of their choice. And then we can restart the game.”

“Sounds fun,” I said, coming to stand between him and Hunter.

“Wait, does that mean I have to ref?” Dagger asked through a frown, stopping midway to us with hands in his pockets.

Seb’s face fell. “Oh, damn. Yeah, that’s not fair.” He thought a second. “How bout… you play on the honor system?”

“That doesn’t seem fair either,” Hunter grumbled.

Dagger rolled his eyes, but there was nothing flippant in his broadening posture. “If you’re so worried, let our jaguars talk. Yours will sense if I’m lying.”

Hunter’s flexed jaw muscle ticked. “Let’s go with the honor system.”

Dagger’s head cocked like a predator on a scent—a sudden, sharp twitch.

Not even Carrot wanted any part of that standoff. She headed into the hall with a sassy tail swish and a disapproving backward glance. But Serenity stepped right into the fraught silence.

“How about you promise me?” She came up behind Dagger,palm running down the back of his tattooed arm. He turned into her smile like a plant to the sun, and she cupped his jaw. “You promise to tell me the whole truth?”

He picked her up by the hips, surprising a happy yelp out of her as she settled on his forearms like a swing, her legs around his waist. With her at perfect eye level, he leaned his forehead against hers and made a goofy show of widening his eyes, unblinking as he said, “I promise.”

I looked over at Hunter, who breathed slowly through his nose. “All right. Fair enough. But we need some ground rules on the dares, so no one crosses any lines or makes anyone uncomfortable.”

Dagger set Serenity down, and she turned to Hunter. “I agree. I…” She flushed and started over, hiding her sheepish smile behind a shrugged shoulder in an adorable gesture that made me want to kiss her until I couldn’t breathe. “I don’t mind a little fun in my dares… but I-I’m new at this stuff.”

“How about rule number one is all clothes stay on,” Hunter said eagerly, like he’d already won the game by setting that one boundary.

“What, are we in middle school?” Dagger scoffed, then thought better of it. “Er, sorry. Out of line.” He glanced Serenity’s way. “What do you think?”

“What about, my panties stay on?” Serenity asked.

“Deal,” said Dagger and Hunter over each other.

“Okay, I’m ready to play.” Serenity bounced back toward her place on the far wall. She froze halfway there and looked over her shoulder at Seb, a nail between her teeth. “What if I run out of questions before you guys get to me?”

Seb hardly missed a beat. “Let’s say you can pick one of us to ask a question in your place at any time.”

“Okay.” She tapped her chin and narrowed eyes on all of us.

My stomach tingled with nerves that I soothed with a burning sip of vodka.

“Hmmm, who to choose.” Her eyes crinkled, and she went still for a second. “Oh, okay, Seb. You first.”

I blinked, surprised. I hadn’t realized they talked in their heads on purpose these days. The way they’d described it at first, it seemed accidental.

Serenity wetted her lips, practically humming with nervous anticipation. “Have you ever been in love?”

He let out a little huffing laugh. “Yeah, for about three months my freshman year of college. We had some fun times. She was exciting. But she, uh… was mostly with me out of pity.” At Serenity’s confused look, he expounded. “She was a full vamp, and I realized after a while that I was her poor little half-vamp charity project that she liked dragging around on a leash.”

“True,” Dagger said, who’d leaned forward to see his face better.

Sebastian took one deliberate step forward.

“Is it cheating if I ask him another?” Serenity asked.

Seb looked back at me and the twins in deference.