Chapter 71

Requested – IKA24556

The tequila bottle sits on the coffee table, half empty, nestled between empty bowls of honey butter cups and the sad, crumpled wrapper of a cherry pie you’d torn into with your bare hands like animals. The movie you’d put on – some glossy action thing with explosions and impossible stunts – has long dissolved into background noise, forgotten as the two of you sprawled across the rug and cushions in a loose tangle of limbs and laughter and the easy intimacy of people who’ve seen each other at their worst and kept the lights on.

Dani is flat on her back, fair fanned out across the rug, one arm thrown over her eyes, the other dangling a single chip above her mouth. She catches it, crunches and groans. “I’m so bored.”

“You’re so dramatic.”

“Same thing.” She rolls onto her side, propping her head on her fist, looking at you with that particular gleam – the one that means she’s 6 shots deep and hatching schemes she’ll either regret or relish. “Entertain me baby.”

“You’re the performer. Entertain yourself.”

“You’re my girlfriend.” She kicks your ankle with her bare foot, toes cold against your calf, then warmer as she leaves them there, pressed against your leg. “It’s literally your job to entertain me. Read the fine print.”

You consider her – flushed cheeks, your stolen hoodie riding up to expose a strip of stomach she’s long stopped being shy about, eyes heavy-lidded and waiting. The room is warm, the lamp casting everything in honey-gold, and suddenly the space between you feels charged, expectant, familiar in a way that still makes your heart thump.

“Truth or dare?” you offer, lazy, knowing she’ll reject it.

“Boring.” She sits up, crossing her legs and leaning forward with her chin in her hands. “Truth or strip.”

You blink. “Strip?”

“You heard me.” She was already grinning, wicked, reaching for the tequila bottle to pour herself another shot. “Rules – I ask you a question. You either answer it – full truth, no deflection. Or, you take something off. Same goes for me. First one completely naked…” She pauses, throwing her shot back, eyes never leaving yours. “…loses.”

Dani sets her glass down with a deliberate click. She crawls closer, knees pressing into the cushion between yours, until her face is inches from yours and you can smell the tequila on her breath, the familiar mint of her toothpaste, and you underneath it all. “Winner’s choice,” she murmurs, voice dropping to velvet. “Could be a massage. Could be breakfast in bed. Could be the loser on their back for as long as the winner wants… doing whatever the winner says.”

Your stomach flips, heat pooling low and sudden, the kind of heat that still surprises you even after months of having the right to touch her whenever you want. “That’s-“

“Fun?” She raises a brow with a smirk. She leans in, lips brushing your jaw, not quite a kiss, just enough to make you lean into her. “Scared?”

You swallow. “Of you? Never.”

“Good.” She sits back, triumphant, and pulls your stolen hoodie – the one you’d been wearing all day, the one that smells like her laundry detergent and your skin – over her head in one fluid motion. She tossed it at your face as you caught it, warm, and soft, still holding her shape, still warm from her body.

“Wait,” you laugh, clutching the hoodie. “You’re already stripping? We haven’t even started.”

“I’m confident.” She leans back on her palms, smug, wearing only a thin tank underneath, grey cotton, clinging in ways that make your mouth dry. No bra. She stopped wearing them around you months ago, claimed you were ‘better than underwire,’ and you’d never argue. “And I’m hot. The hoodie was suffocating me. Your fault for being so warm.”

“Right.” You smirked.

“Oh you love it.” She grins, unrepentant, and produces her phone, scrolling with theatrical deliberation. “Ready?”

“Get on with it, menace.”

She reads aloud, voice pitched for drama. “Never have I ever had a sex dream about my girlfriend while she was asleep next to me.”

You stare. “That’s not even a question. That’s a trap in disguise.”

“Answer it or strip, those are the rules.” She leans back, smug, waiting. “And we both know the answer, don’t we? You told me. That morning in New York. The hotel with the thin walls. How you woke up absolutely drenched and I had to-“

“Okay!” Your cheeks combust, memory flooding in perfect, embarrassing clarity. You’d confessed that over convenience store coffee, hungover and loose-tongued, and she’d looked at you like you’d handed her a gift. Now she’s cashing it in.

“Fine.” You grab the hem of your shirt, hesitate just long enough to watch her eyes drop to your stomach, hungry despite having seen you naked a hundred times. You pull it over your head, tossing it back at her. She catches it, presses it to her nose with theatrical flair.

“Knew it,” she sing-songs. “Knew you were naked under there. Knew you wanted me. Knew you were dreaming about me while I was literally breathing next to you, which is honestly kinda flattering-“

“Shut up.” You’re in your bra now, black lace, suddenly aware of every inch of exposed skin despite the fact she bought this bra for you. Despite the fact she watched you put it on this morning. “My turn.”

You grab her phone, scroll until you find something worthy, something to wipe that grin off her face. “When’s the last time you touched yourself thinking about me? And I mean specifically – what you were wearing, where I was, what you imagined me doing?”

Dani’s grin falters. Microscopic – but you catch it. The pink climbing her throat. The way her thighs press together, just slightly, just enough to tell you the answer is recent and vivid and probably while you were in the apartment.

“That’s-“

“Truth or strip, superstar. No deflection. You made the rules. You wanted to play.” You grinned, pleased with yourself.

She stands, hooking her thumbs in the waistband of her sleep shorts – soft cotton, pale blue, riding low on her hips, the ones you always tell her make her ass look incredible – and pushes them down, slow, deliberate, like she’s putting on a show she knows you can’t look away from. She steps out of them, kicking them toward you with her toe.

“Strip,” she says, casual, though her voice is hoarse, standing there in just a tank and nothing else. You can definitely see how wet she is already. “Because the truth would require admitting I did it this morning while you were in the shower, singing off-key, and I could hear the water hitting your skin and I just-” She stops, swallows, looks away. “Strip.”

You swallow, hard. “You-“

“Next question,” she perks up, interrupting you fast. “My turn.”

She crawls closer, knees between yours, phone forgotten on the rug. She’s improvising now, dangerous, drunk on the game, you and the history you share. “What’s something you want me to do to you that I’ve never done? Be specific. Be dirty. Be honest.”

You consider the bra. Consider the truth. The tequila hums in your veins, loosening the knot of inhibition, and her eyes are on you – waiting, wanting, daring. The eyes of your girlfriend who knows you better than anyone and still wants more.

“Use your teeth,” you say, voice barely above a whisper, watching her pupils blow wide. “Everywhere. Hard enough to bruise. I want to wear you for days. I want to look in the mirror and remember you. I want-” You stop, breathe, admit the rest. “I want you to mark me where only I’ll know. Where I can touch it and think of your mouth.”

Dani makes a sound – low, guttural, almost pained. She doesn’t move to strip. She doesn’t answer. She just stares at you like she’s memorizing the shape of your want, filing it away for later use, for tonight, for the morning after, and the morning after that.

“That’s-” she starts, stops, swallows hard. “That’s not fair. That’s cheating. You’re supposed to make me strip, not-” She gestures at herself, at the tank, and the obvious fact she’s not wearing anything underneath it. “Not make me want to skip the game entirely.”

“Your turn,” you repeat, emboldened by her wrecked expression, by the power of being known this well. “Question or strip. Your choice babygirl.”

She stands on shaky legs. Hooks her thumbs on the hem of her tank. She pulls it up, slow, inch by inch, teasing despite the tremor in her fingers, until her breasts are exposed, nipples tight from the air (or you), until she tosses it at your head, you catching it, dumbstruck.

“Strip,” she breathes. “Because I can’t think of a single question that matters more than you seeing me like this. Because I want you to look at me and know I’m yours. Because-” She stops, meeting your eyes. “Because I love you, and I want you to win, and I want to lose, and I can’t remember why we even started playing.”

You just stare. She’s beautiful – always, but especially now, naked and trembling, victorious in her loss. Your girlfriend, the person who sleeps beside you and wakes up beside you. Who chose you and keeps choosing you. The rules crumble, the game dissolving into something older, hungrier, truer.

“Come here,” you whisper, and she does, straddling your lap where you sit on the cushion, skin to skin, her heat pressed against your jeans, against the denim that’s suddenly too much of a barrier. She kisses you like she’s drowning and you’re air – messy, desperate, teeth clicking, tequila-scented and familiar all at the same time. Her hands fly to your bra clasp, fumbling and cursing like she always does, before finally freeing you. You just arch into her palms, gasping.

“Winner’s choice,” she pants against your mouth. “What do you want?”

You stand, lifting her with you, and walk back toward the bedroom. She wraps her legs around your waist, giggling, kissing your jaw, your throat, biting hard where your shoulder meets your neck – exactly where you asked, exactly how you wanted, the sting perfect.

“Bed,” you manage. “Now. I want you on your back. I want to taste every inch and make you forget the game ever started.”

She laughs, breathless, as you lower her to the mattress. “Too late. I’m already forgetting.”

You strip your jeans, your underwear, until you’re bare above her, trembling with want and alcohol, and the sheer relief of her skin on yours. She reaches up, tracing your collarbone, your breast, the curve of your hip – mapping, claiming, memorising. The way she always does. The way you’ll never get used to.

“Truth or strip?” she whispers, teasing, though the game is long dead, even though you won, winning was never the point.

“Truth,” you say, settling between her thighs, feeling her arch against you, wet and ready. “I love you. That’s the truth. That’s always the truth. That’s the only truth that matters.”

She moans as you slide into her – fingers first, slow as you watch her face crumple and her head thrown back against the pillows, hair wild, throat exposed. “Dani,” you murmur. She breathes, not a question, a prayer, a name she gave you the right to call. “Y/N, please-“

You please. You learn her rhythm, her sounds, the exact pressure that makes her heels dig into your back, the precise curl of your fingers that has her gasping your name like a prayer, like a song she wrote for you alone.

When she comes, it’s with your name breaking in her throat, fingers white in your hair, body shaking apart under your mouth, around your hand, against your skin, and you feel it – the clutch, the pulse, the surrender – and you keep her there, riding it out, whispering love against her thigh until she softens, until she breathes, until she pulls you up and gathers you close.

You come back up, tangling in sheets, sweat and each other. She traces lazy patterns on your back – circles, hearts, your name in cursive, the date you met – and hums something tuneless, something that might be the bridge of a song she’s working on, although it might be nothing at all.

“Who won?” she murmurs, half-asleep, face tucked into your neck where your pulse still raced, where she always pressed her lips to feel you alive.

You smile against her temple, tasting salt and satisfaction. “Both of us.”

She breathes out, and you breathe in, and the night stretches long and warm around you, full of truth, skin and no more layers between you, and somewhere in the dark, somewhere quiet in the game becomes a memory, and the winning becomes the easy part.

Her hand finds yours under the blanket, threading tight and that? That’s the truth you’ll keep, the one that you’ll tell her again in the morning, the one you’ll write down and whisper if she asks, the one that started before tonight and will outlast every game you ever play.

———-

Come on now, you expected chapter 69 to NOT be a spicy one…

I had to 😉