Page 48 of Revelation (The Josh & Kat Trilogy #2)

JOSH

W hen I emerge from my bathroom, there’s yet another James Bay song playing—this one, thankfully, in no danger of sending me into a tailspin.

Kat’s sprawled naked on her stomach across my bed, looking like a wet dream, her long, toned limbs stretched across my mattress, her blonde hair unfurled across my pillow, her tight ass just begging to get spanked or bitten or fucked.

Or all of the above. Jesus. I wouldn’t mind being greeted with this vision every time I come out of my bathroom.

I crawl onto the bed and drape my body over hers, pressing my naked body into hers. “Hey, babe,” I say softly.

She turns her head and rests her cheek on the pillow.

“Hey,” she says softly. “Everything okay?”

“Mmm hmm. Everything’s great.” I push her hair to one side and stroke the Scorpio tattoo on the back of her neck. “How are you?”

“Good.”

She squirms underneath me and I lift up, letting her turn onto her back so that we’re lying nose to nose, our bodies pressed together.

“You look like you have one eye,” she says, pressing her nose into mine. “One very blue and beautiful eye.”

“I’m Mike Wazowski,” I say.

She laughs. “Why do you know that?”

“Are you kidding me? I love Monsters, Inc . ”

She laughs. “You never cease to surprise me.”

“Mike Wazowski!” I say in the voice of Boo. “Kitty!”

“Admit it—you were stoned out of your mind when you watched that movie, weren’t you? ”

“ No , as a matter of fact. I was, like, sixteen or something—still a very nice boy.”

She laughs. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to offend you.”

I pause. “I was a very nice boy at one point, Kat—I went to see cartoon-movies in the theatre and everything.”

“I’m sure you were.”

I pause. “Although, in the interest of the honesty-game, I watched Monsters, Inc. stoned out of my mind later on DVD.”

She bursts out laughing and I join her. God, I’m fucking addicted to her. I can’t resist reaching out and touching her golden hair. It’s the color of straw. Spun gold. Sunshine. I stroke her hair for a moment and she purrs like a cat.

“You blow me away, Kat—not just in bed. All the time. With everything you do and say.”

She inhales sharply. “You blow me away, too.” Her face turns bright red.

I suddenly feel like I’m on the verge of babbling every thought in my head again—all the stuff I was about to say a minute ago, before I escaped into the bathroom. Fuck me, I wanna tell her about Seattle.

“All right, babe,” I say, rolling off her. “Enough talking about cartoons—we’ve got kinky-fuckery to talk about.”

She laughs. “Nice transition.”

I sit up in bed. “So here’s the deal, Heidi Kumquat. When I wrote my application to The Club I was in a totally different state of mind than I am now.”

She nods. This is not news to her.

I exhale. “Would you be terribly disappointed if we moved right into doing everything on your fantasy list and skipped the stuff I wrote about in my application to The Club?”

“Why?”

I shrug. “Doing that shit now just feels like trying to relive my junior prom. Now all I wanna do is go to my senior prom—with you.”

She grins. “Aw. You’re asking me to prom?”

“So you’re not disappointed?” I ask. “You seemed pretty excited to be on the receiving end of all that shit in my application.”

She shrugs. “Hey, if you’re not feeling it, then we don’t do it.

And, anyway, I got to be a high-end call girl.

That’s what I was really jonezing for.” She makes a checkmark motion in the air.

“Plus, I unexpectedly got a bonus mini-porno out of it, too—watching you get all riled up at the thought of anyone but you touching me was utterly delicious.” She shoots me a wicked smile.

“ I knew it .”

She laughs a full-throated laugh.

“Diabolical,” I say, smiling. “Okay, cool. It’s settled. We’re doing your fantasies, baby.”

She squeals with pleasure.

“So this is how it’s gonna work. You’ll just go about your life, okay?

—and sometimes shit will just start happening to you.

And when it does, you’ll just play along.

Don’t worry, you’ll totally know what to do because—” I slap my hands together hard, making her flinch.

“Sorry. I just had a brilliant idea. I’ll be right back.

” I leap out of bed and race to my hallway closet, my pulse pounding in my ears.

Holy fuck, this is gonna be epic. I quickly find what I’m looking for and sprint back to my bed.

“Open your hand, babe.” She does, and I place a poker chip in her palm.

“Every time a fantasy is starting, you’ll get a poker chip just like this one.

That way you’ll never be confused about whether a role-play is starting.

You know, you won’t go, ‘Are you really a fireman? Is my house really burning down—or are you here to eat my pussy?”

She laughs. “I don’t have a fireman fantasy—Colby’s a fireman. Too weird.”

I roll my eyes. “It was just an example, babe. I know all your fantasies, remember? I took copious notes. I’m just saying the poker chip will be our secret signal so I’ll never need to say, ‘Hey, Kat, I’m doing a fantasy now.’ That way you can just relax and enjoy the ride and play along.”

“But what if there really is a fire—using your example—and it happens after you’ve already given me the poker chip? You’d be like, ‘Fire, Kat! Fire!’ And I’d be like, ‘Oh, yeah, baby. I’m on fi-yah .’” She giggles.

“Good point,” I say, laughing with her. “We should have a safe word in case we need to stop the role-play for any reason.”

“Okay. How about ‘overcome’? Wasn’t that what you used with the women in The Club? ”

I wave my hands in dismissal. I don’t even want to think about those women right now. “That was then , babe—this is now. Our fantasy-sex-club is all about fun —not exorcising my fucking demons.”

“Awesome,” she says, her eyes blazing. “How about ‘sick fuck,’ then?”

“ Babe . Did you not hear a word I just said? I’m over it. Plus, I kinda dig it when you call me a sick fuck. I wanna keep that phrase as fair game. You never know what you might scream when I’m fucking the shit out of you in a dental chair.”

“Ooh.” She raises an eyebrow. “We’re gonna do the dentist thing?”

“Oh my God, you’re a terrible listener. What’d I just say? Yes. We’re gonna do everything .”

She squeals. “Oh my God. This is gonna be redonk. ”

“So what’s the safe word? It can be anything. Onomatopoeia.”

She giggles. “Who’s the idiot who came up with that word? Who needs so many syllables to say ‘ Bam! ’?”

I laugh.

“Brouhaha?” she asks.

“What the fuck? No . Weirdo.”

She shrugs.

We sit and think.

“Peanut butter and jelly sandwich?” she offers.

I jut my lip, considering it. “Since that’s the only thing I know how to make, in theory, it could come up.”

“I truly cannot fathom how either of us would say ‘peanut butter and jelly sandwich’ while fucking, but okay, if you say so. How about ‘rainbows and unicorns’? That’ll never come out of my mouth, I guarantee you.”

“Might come out of mine—you’re a total unicorn, babe. I could totally imagine myself blurting that in a moment of weakness. Even if I don’t say ‘rainbows’ along with it, it could still get confusing.”

She laughs. “This shouldn’t be that hard.”

I sit and think for a moment. “Flesh-eating bacteria,” I say.

“Hell no. You’re demented to even suggest it. Come on. Dinosaur. Doorknob. Dandelion. Dungarees. Deedle-deedle-dee. Pick one. ”

I laugh. “No, hang on. I’m kinda digging ‘flesh-eating bacteria.’ I can’t imagine any sexual scenario in which those words would ever come up.”

“As opposed to ‘dungarees’ or ‘dandelion’?” She rolls her eyes. “Come on, Josh. Spaghetti. Skateboard. Ballerina. Scooby Doo. Multi-vitamin. From Justin to Kelly . ‘My Little Pony.’ Hot tamale.”

“Oh my God.” I hoot with glee. “ From Justin to Kelly . Winner-winner-chicken-dinner.”

Kat rolls her eyes. “What? No . I was totally kidding. Harry Potter. Chili-cheese fries. ‘Go big or go home.’ Hunky dory.”

“Nope. We’ve got our winner. From Justin to Kelly it is.”

She twists her mouth. “You’re a silly man.”

I laugh.

“You totally saw that movie, didn’t you?”

“Hell yeah. It was part of initiation in my fraternity. I saw it during hell-week.”

She laughs. “You got hazed with From Justin to Kelly ?”

I nod. “It was brutal.”

She’s laughing her ass off. “Oh my God.”

“So, hey, babe, there’s something I wanna run past you before we get started.”

“Okay.”

“In order to pull off some of your crazy-ass stuff, I might need to enlist a little help occasionally from third parties—not for anything sexual, obviously—never anything sexual—just in setting the stage for a scenario.”

She makes a face. “Could you be more specific about how you define ‘setting the stage’?”

“Not without giving things away.”

There’s a long beat.

“I promise you won’t be embarrassed or compromised in any way,” I say. “You’ll always be fully dressed. I just wanna make these imaginary-pornos as close as possible to what you described to me—and occasionally I think I might need to cast an extra or two to do it.”

She beams a huge smile at me.

“What?” I ask.

“You’re adorable.”

I scoff .

“You are.”

“So is that a yes?”

She nods. “I’ve got a safe word, right? If I’ve got a problem with anything at any time, then I’ll use it.”

“That’s right, babe. You can always count on From Justin to Kelly to protect you.”

She rolls her eyes. “Oh, Joshua. You’re a silly, silly man.”

I laugh.

“And a very sweet one, too.”