"I was drunk."
Yeah, okay, that was a lousy excuse. The truth was that he'd agreed because he'd been so sure how this game would play out. Liv would last about six hours before surrendering. Then he'd tease her for another six, building up the tension until he finally capitulated and then . . . Fuck, yeah.
Which proved that maybe he had been a little drunk. Sober, he'd have realized that there was no way Liv would lose a game so easily, and he'd be the one getting teased. Which was not necessarily a bad thing. He watched as she pulled off her T-shirt and let it fall into the bushes below. No, it was not a bad thing at all. And as she'd said, there was no penalty for being the first to fold. He just didn't like to lose. No more than she did. Which could make things hard. He glanced down at his crotch. Yep, definitely hard.
"So, are you joining me for a swim?" Liv said.
As he watched, she popped the button on her jeans and pushed them down over her hips. Then she stepped out of her jeans, kicked them aside and did a little striptease wiggle.
One might think that after eight days living out of the Harley's saddlebags, Liv would look a little worse for wear. But then one wouldn't know Liv. Her ash-blond hair gleamed and bounced as if it hadn't been under a helmet all day. Half her saddlebag space had probably been allocated to clean lingerie, which may have explained the slow progress of their trip so far.
Hell, no. That was just another excuse. Sexy undergarments were all well and fine, but the only "excuse" for the sex was the fact that it was just the two of them, riding the Harley along empty roads, which even back home was "excuse" enough to pull off for sex. Out here? With no one to stop them, no obligations calling, nothing but endless days of endless riding on endless roads? Yeah, there'd been a lot of sex. Which was fucking awesome but also meant, if they kept it up, they'd have to ride straight through the last few days on the trail with no stops for sex--or hikes or swims or anything else that had made this an amazing trip.
Still, the lingerie was a nice bonus. Very nice. Today it was a pink-and-black set that he didn't think he'd seen before, though he really had to take a better look to be sure. He tilted his head and watched her breasts bounce over the black lace and . . .
Fuck.
His gaze traveled over the swell of her hips, down her long legs to the boots. She'd tugged them back on after shucking her jeans. Sexy little motorcycle boots, with heels, that somehow didn't impede her hiking through deep forest. Or keep her from bouncing on that rock, dressed only in those heels and that very tiny bra and panties that barely covered anything at all.
Fuck.
"You go on," he said, starting to undo his belt. "I'll just be up here. Amusing myself. Since it's the only amusement I'm likely to get today."
"Poor baby. Unfortunately, self-amusement is against the rules. Remember?"
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"Drunk. Remember? Whatever I agreed to--"
"It was your rule."
Fuck.
He was about to respond when he heard something in the forest. It sounded like . . .
A baby?
The sound stopped. It'd been just a single cry, as if to say, I'm awake now.
He listened for fellow hikers but heard only the normal sounds of the forest. Maybe that's all it'd been. The cry of a bird or animal, and Liv saying, "Poor baby," had put the association into his head.
"--would allow a slight amendment to the rules," he heard Liv saying. "Self-amusement is allowable, given that the other is permitted to observe."
"What?" He turned back fast, the cry half-forgotten . . . and then completely forgotten as he saw her standing on that rock, naked but for the boots.
She kicked off one boot. "That's a no, then?"
"Wait. What? You were saying . . ."
"Self-amusement is allowable, given that the other is permitted to observe."
A slow grin spread across his face. "Permitted or required?"
She pursed her lips in mock thought. "Required would be better. Party A is required to self-amuse in front of Party B, who is required to watch. Fair enough?"
"Hell, yeah."
He finished undoing his belt.