“I don’t tell Peeneverything.I only tell him about my music and girls—”
“Like I said, ‘everything.’”
“But I never tell him your stuff. Seriously, Jizz, I never do.” His eyes are earnest. “I swear.” He flashes me an adorable puppy-dog smile. “You aren’t really pissed at me for opening your box, are you?”
I roll my eyes. “No,” I say begrudgingly. “But never do it again.”
He crosses his heart. “The next time a guy with a lord-of-the-manor name sends a big box marked ‘personal & confidential’ to Katherine Ulla Morgan at your apartment, and I’m here all alone when the delivery comes, I swear to God I will not open it before you get home. So who is this ‘J.W. Faraday’ chap?” he asks, saying Josh’s name with a Queen-Elizabeth-British accent. “Sounds like a guy with a butler.”
I plop down on the couch and Dax follows suit, settling himself right next to me. I grab his hand (something I’ve been doing ever since Mom brought him home from the hospital for the first time when I was four), and I lean my cheek against his strong shoulder.
“Joshua William Faraday,” I breathe, my heart skipping a beat as I say the words.
“So you know each other’s middle names, huh? Sounds serious, brah.”
I don’t reply. Dax is being flippant, I think—but his comment hits on the exact thing I can’t stop wondering: Is this thing with Josh something serious or are we having some sort of extended fling?
“Hey, by the way,” Dax says, “you’ll probably wanna read this.” He holds up a small sealed envelope. “It was inside the box.”
I snatch the envelope from him, hyperventilating. Oh, thank God, it’s still sealed.
“It pained me not to read it,” Dax says. “It really did. But Ifigure there are somelines even I shouldn’t cross, seeing as how you’re my sister and all.”
I tear open the envelope, pull out a typewritten note (taking great care to keep it out of Dax’s line of sight), and read as fast as my eyes can manage:
“My Dearest Party Girl with a Hyphen,” Josh’s note says. “I hope you get lots and lots of enjoyment from your new toy. Please make use of it every day when I can’t be there personally to make you scream. While you use it, I want you to imagine it’s me who’s fucking you, nice and slow, and whispering into your ear as I do about how amazing you feel, how dripping wet you are for me, and how much you turn me on.”
Holy shitballs.
My breathing has suddenly become labored.
“Until we meet again,” Josh continues in his note, “I want you to use your new toy every time you feel even the slightest bit horny or lonely. (Because even when I can’t be with you in person, I’m determined to keep my hot-wired Party Girl with a Hyphen completely satisfied—wouldn’t want her feeling even remotely tempted to fuck Cameron Schulz again, now would I?)
“I’m looking forward to seeing you again very soon and making each and every one of your (highly detailed) sexual fantasies come true.Exclusivelyyours, Playboy.”
“Oh. My. God,” I say breathlessly. My crotch is exploding with arousal in my panties and I’m panting like a Pekingese running a hundred-yard dash.
“What does it say?” Dax asks.
I press the note against my chest. “It says, ‘It’s none of your frickin’ business, Dax Morgan.’”
“Aw, come on.”
“No way.”
He makes a wry face. “So what’s the status with you two—are you in a relationship or... ?”
“I have no freaking idea what our status is. Whatever we’re doing defies standard labeling.”
“The guy sends you a fifteen-hundred-dollar gift and you don’t know the status? That’s a lot of money to spend on a gift for some chick you’re just hanging out with.”
I shrug. “It’s hard to explain.”
“Are you at least dating?”
I sigh. “Yeah. I think so. I mean we’ve both made it clear we’re really into each other. But I don’t know where things are headed—he gets really skittish the minute he feels like he’s being penned in. But on the other hand we agreed to be exclusive.”
“You’re exclusive? Well, then it’s way beyond dating.”
