I look again from her to the spread on the floor, and I have no idea what to make of any of this. I want to cover her with every single thing laid out and lick her from head to toe, but that’s not what we’re doing right now. At least, I thought it wasn’t.

“Different how?”

A smile lifts the corner of her mouth. “Like a game, kind of. We’ll take turns asking each other questions. If I choose to answer your question then I get to decide what I want to put on your body and where. Same goes for you and back and forth like that.”

“I’m trying to really hash this shit out with you and you wanna play a game but you don’t wanna fuck?”

“I’m trying to give you what you deserve and talk to you about everything but letting all that out in there“—she points toward her bedroom—”was a lot, and I don’t think I can take much more of that. I still have things to tell you, and I have questions for you too. This will give me something to focus on while we continue to hash it out.”

“Olivia, I…”

“Please,” she quips. Fuck, this woman has such a tight hold on me that one word undoes me. All I wanted to tell her was that we didn’t have to do this at all. That she can ask me any questions she wants but I don’t have to ask her any because the moment I found out she wanted me then and still wants me now, I was all in. The rest is noise we can sort out later, but I see how tightly wound she is. She needs this and I…just need her.

I scoot past her and plop my ass down on the blanket. “So how do you win?”

Her eyes light up as her shy smile transforms into a wide grin. She sits down across from me with her legs spread on either side of the array of food items.

“Well, the goal of this is to finish our conversation. The other stuff is meant to be a reward for opening up, so you lose if you try to take more than just your one lick per turn. If you try to initiate something more sexual, the game is over.”

“So what I’m hearing is, there’s no real loser in this game.”

“That depends on how you look at it.”

“Mm-hmm. Ladies first, love.”

“No, no. You first.”

Fine. “Fuck, marry, kill. Orlando, Portland, Cary.”