“I turn and gaze at him midway. Chin up Steele, I chide myself. “Oh... by the way, I’m wearing your underwear.” I gave him a small smile and pull up the waistband of the boxer briefs I’m wearing so he can see. Christian’s mouth drops open, shocked. What a great reaction. My mood shifts immediately, and I sashay into the house, part of me wanting to jump and punch the air.”

“We need to do something about this now. There are things we can do.” My hand curled into fists. “Like what?” “Well, the jumping jacks for … an hour or so should do it” His gaze dropped. Something flickered in his eyes. “You may want to change first.” The urge to cover myself was strong, but I resisted. I wasn’t going to cower from him. “I’m not doing jumping jacks for an hour.” “Then you could run around the house, up and down the stairs.” He paused, his smug grin turning wicked as his eyes met mine. “We could always have sex. I hear that uses up a lot of energy.” My mouth dropped open.”

“And if you don’t agree, I’ll tie you up—and not in the fun way—and lock you in your bedroom.”My mouth dropped open.“Okay, maybe in the fun way. Like later, after everything is done, I’ll come back and—”I cut him off. “I’d like to see you try to tie me up.”His eyebrow arched. “I bet you would.”“Shut up,” I growled. “I’m being serious.”“So am I. You’re wearing the opal.”I scowled. “This makes no sense.”“It makes perfect sense.”

“Since we’re playing that game… I tilted my face up to his and gave him a lovesick gaze.“Do you have to sneeze?” he asked.“Be quiet. I’m pretending to enjoy your company, just as you said.”“Try not to strain anything.”“Oh, I won’t. I’m very good at faking it.”That shut him up.”

“I can assure you that your underwear is safe around me. I prefer having the little fruit on the underwear I’m wearing than to BE a big fruit in them.”

“She says that I have to abstain from all sexual activity for the next four weeks.”Christian’s mouth drops open in shock, and I cannot keep a straight face any longer and grin at him like an idiot.“Gotcha!”He narrows his eyes, and I immediately stop laughing. In fact, he looks rather forbidding. Oh shit. My subconscious quails me in the corner as all the blood drains from my face, and I imagine him putting me across his knee again.“Gotcha!” He says and smirks.”