Sweet Victory: A Novella (His Wicked Games #2.5) (5 page)

“That’s the wrong answer, sweet one,” he says. Little by little, the shadows are leaving his face. It gives me the confidence to press on.

“Is it?” I say.

He shakes his head at my oh-so-obvious ploy. “Do you remember what I said would happen if you guessed wrong?”

“I remember you saying you would enjoy it.”

He chuckles. “Someone’s extra cheeky tonight, isn’t she?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I pull out of his arms. If he wants “cheeky,” that’s what I’ll give him. I roll over onto my hands and knees with my ass—hanging gloriously out of the bottom of the lingerie—in full view.

“Silly little Lily,” Calder murmurs. “You give yourself over to the devil so easily…” His hands slide over the curved flesh of my bottom. His fingers curl, the nails digging into the soft skin, and I whimper at the rush of pleasure and pain.

“I think,” he says, “you’ve forgotten that you’ve lost this round. We’re supposed to be playing this by my rules.”

I wiggle my hips in reply, and he tightens his grip.

“What will it be?” he says. “Should I bind you? Blindfold you? Gag you? That little tongue of yours does seem to cause you trouble…”

He releases his grip on my ass and grabs me by the waist. Before I have a chance to give him my answer, he flips me over onto my back.

“Come to think of it, there are other things I’d much rather do with your tongue,” he says.

His mouth comes down on mine hard and fast, and our tongues meet each other in desperate hunger. He lowers his body onto mine, and I spread my legs and let his groin press against me. He’s rock hard beneath his jeans, and I wriggle a hand between our bodies to try and touch him.

“I can think… of one more thing… I can do with my tongue,” I rasp between the incessant attacks of his lips. I give him a squeeze for good measure.

Calder groans in response, and he tears himself away from me to sit back on his heels.

“Is that what you want?” He unzips his pants, setting himself free for the second time tonight.

“You know what I want,” I purr. I sit up and crawl toward him.

But I’ve hardly parted my lips before he reaches out and grabs me by the hair, pulling my head back from his hard length.

“My, but we’re eager tonight,” he says. “Tell me, Lily. Tell me what you want.”

“I want you.”

“So we’re playing coy now?”

“I want to suck your cock,” I say obediently.

That seems to satisfy him. His eyes flash, and he releases my hair and stands up. I move forward and take his shaft in my hand, then lower my head to pleasure him.

It doesn’t take long before I’m convinced he’s forgotten all about his worries. He tangles his hands in my hair, digging his fingers into my scalp and guiding my movements as I show him exactly what I can do with my tongue.

“Lily…” he gasps.

I know just how to tease him with my mouth, just how to draw him slowly and deliciously to the brink. For every secret he’s learned about my body since we started dating, I’ve learned something about him, too. Every ragged breath, every moan, every desperate twist of his fingers is testament to the intimate truths I’ve discovered about him. And I’m nowhere close to finished learning yet.

I slowly draw the length of him out of my mouth. Leaving my lips pressed against the tip, I look up at him with wide eyes. His own eyes are glazed with lust, but they gleam with relish at my earnest expression.

“I’ve thought of my next challenge,” I say, letting my mouth brush against him as I speak.

He grips my scalp. “Your what?”

“For the next hint.” I flick my tongue across his swollen head.

He draws in a shallow breath. “Now?”

I smile at the restraint in his voice. His entire body is rigid, as if he’s just barely managing to hold himself back from driving his hard length into my mouth.

“Ten seconds,” I say. “If you can hold out that long, you win. Otherwise you owe me another hint.”

He considers this proposition, but not for long. He knows that every moment he spends thinking is one less moment my lips are around him.

“Fine,” he says. “Ten seconds.”

I grab his phone from the floor next to him and quickly set the alarm before dropping it again. My mouth is on him again before the cell even hits the mattress beside me.

Ten
.

He was close before, but I know he’ll be doing everything in his power to hold back now. There’s tension in every muscle in his body, but I know exactly what he likes.

Nine
.

I tighten my grip around the base of him and stroke him from the bottom as my mouth moves downward from the tip.

Eight
.

He groans and drops his hands to my shoulders.

Seven
.

He can’t keep himself from bucking his hips once, twice.

Six
.

I swirl my tongue around the swollen head of his arousal.

Five
.

He’s tugging on my hair again. His moans are becoming more guttural.

Four
.

I hum while my mouth’s around him, making him squirm.

Three
.

His groans turn into curses.

He explodes a full two seconds before the alarm goes off, and despite all of his swearing, he seems to enjoy losing this particular contest. He sinks back down to his knees and wraps me in his arms.

“Fuck, that was good,” he murmurs against my hair.

We collapse together on the mattress. At this rate, we’re going to be passed out from exhaustion long before we finish the game. Between our exertions and the move, my muscles ache with fatigue. I don’t even want to think about the unpacking we should be doing right now—and all the work that awaits us tomorrow.

I let my hand glide across his hard stomach. His chest is still heaving up and down, and I revel in the fact that, even now, I can do this to him. I can make him so wild that he loses all self-control. I can bring him such pleasure that it overrides even his naturally competitive nature. I only hope that I’ve managed to put his mind at ease once more—that, for now, he’s utterly convinced of my desire for him,

“So,” I say, flipping over so that I’m partially on top of him. “How about that hint?”

He gives a breathless chuckle. “Can’t a man recover first?”

“You’re very demanding for someone who just lost a challenge.” I grin and tilt my head, letting my hair fall across his chest. The strands are a tangled mess right now, but Calder doesn’t seem to mind. He runs his fingers through the waves.

He gives a playful, over-exaggerated sigh. “Fine. What’s your question?”

This time I’m ready. I don’t expect to be able to pull off a trick like last time—even if I still contend that I was merely being clever, not cheating—so I need to start narrowing down the details one by one.

“Is it something for our apartment?”

“I’m sorry, love, but I’m afraid it’s not.”

“Really?” Well, that
does
shrink the guessing pool, doesn’t it? But if it’s not for our apartment—well, it could be for
anything
else.

“Unhappy with that answer?” His eyes crinkle.

“Just… confused.” I sit up. “You’re making this very, very difficult, you know.”

“Me?” He doesn’t bother to hold back his laughter. “You agreed to this little game, my dear. And you seem to be enjoying it so far.”

I shake my head, unable to hide my own amusement. I
am
enjoying this. But I’d also hoped I’d be a little closer to the answer by now. All I know is that it’s in the apartment but not
for
the apartment. I can only assume that that means it’s explicitly for me—unless, of course, it’s something for the bedroom.
That
sort of gift would be for him, too.

Then again, it’s probably something really, really obscure. That way Calder can ensure that I’ll make plenty of wrong guesses.

I shake my head. “What if I never guess it?”

The corner of his mouth twists up. “Then I suppose you’ll be stuck here as my sex slave forever. Unless, of course, I take pity on you and decide to hand it over anyway.”

I give him a playful smack on the shoulder. “I don’t need your pity.”

“Not yet, anyway.”

My glare doesn’t even faze him.

Nor does the knocking. In fact, we’re several minutes into our little standoff before I realize the pounding isn’t coming from my own thumping heart.

“Is that our door?” I say.

Who could be knocking on our door? Especially at this hour? I haven’t had a chance to give everyone our new address yet. I suppose the delivery guy could be paying us a return visit—maybe he forgot one of our dishes and we didn’t notice?—but it seems a little late for that. Maybe the walls were even thinner than we thought and one of the neighbors has come to complain. Calder’s already climbing to his feet, and he pulls me up beside him. We return to the living room together.

The pounding is growing louder, more insistent.

“Stay back,” Calder tells me. I can tell by his expression that he, too, is unnerved by this late-night visitor. I’m about to suggest that we ignore the knocking and hope whoever it is goes away when our unexpected guest stops pounding and starts yelling through the door.

“Come on, Calder! I know you’re in there!”

I freeze. Why is a woman screaming through our door? Why is she looking for Calder?

I glance over at him, and it appears that he’s just as shocked as I am. He’s frozen, stunned.

“Who is it?” I hiss. If she doesn’t hear us, there’s still a chance she’ll give up and go away. I steal a glance at the door, and I’m relieved to see that both the deadbolt and the chain are in place.

“Dammit!” shouts the woman. “Let me in, Calder!”

Calder is staring straight at the door, and his hands have curled into fists. He doesn’t appear to have heard my initial question, so I try again.

“Who is she?” I ask, a little louder this time. “What does she want?” Is this some angry ex-girlfriend come to bring her wrath down upon his new apartment? But that doesn’t make any sense—we’ve both had long talks about our past relationships, and I can’t think of anyone from his past who’d show up out of the blue like this.

It takes Calder a minute to turn his head toward me. When he does, he looks positively stricken. I swear he’s a shade paler than usual.

“It’s Louisa,” he says, his confusion clear in his voice.

Louisa?
I’m certain I know that name, but it takes a moment for everything to click in my head.

No, she’s not an ex-girlfriend, but rather something much, much more complicated.

Calder seems aware of that complication, too. He’s already turning back toward the door, his brow wrinkling in some mash-up of emotions I can’t even begin to name.

When he does speak, it’s as if he’s saying the words to himself, confirming that yes, she is at his—
our
—door.

“My sister.”

What the
hell
?

I’m not even sure what to think right now.
This
is the girl who left Calder alone to deal with the aftermath of their father’s death. While he was mucking through the financial mess they inherited and fighting off swarms of paparazzi, she was happily at work over in Thailand. Family is supposed to stick together during the rough times—and Louisa abandoned him. She’s the only other remaining Cunningham, and yet she took off to the other side of the world when he needed her most. And now she thinks she can just show up at our new apartment and scream at him to let her in?

No. This is supposed to be a special night for me and Calder, and I’m not about to let her ruin it.

I storm across the floor to the door and fling open the lock. Louisa stops her incessant knocking at the jingle of the chain, and her shouting turns to laughter even before I’ve opened the door.

“Geez, Calder, what took you so—” Her voice cuts off and her eyes widen when she finds me, not her brother, staring back at her.

“Can I help you?” I say. I don’t even attempt to sound friendly.

“I’m…” She glances past me, but I’ve only opened the door partway and I’m not sure if she can see Calder. “I’m looking for my brother. Calder Cunningham?”

I’m about to tell her off, but suddenly Calder’s beside me, pulling the door out of my death grip.

“Louisa,” he says, his voice completely flat.

I glance between the siblings. Their blood relation is obvious; while Calder’s significantly taller than Louisa, they both have the same dark eyes and hair. Louisa’s is tied back in a ponytail, but several curls have come loose to dangle around her heart-shaped face. Her tight black pants and turtleneck make her already petite figure look even tinier.