Page 31 of Sloane

Holoth and Essa sit across from Jovi and me in the booth seats around the kitchen table. Phial sits backward in a chair at the head of the table. He has to sit backward so his tail doesn't get sat on. His tail is thicker than Essa's, and he says he can't sit on it like she can with hers, so he has to sit in chairs backward if they aren't made to accommodate it.

"Never have I ever? What are the rules?" Essa furrows her brows, her tail thumping around my feet until it finds one and lies limply across my toes. I snort out a laugh and kick my legs further under the table so she can wrap her tail around it. I don't know why she does it, but it makes her happy and isn't a hassle for me. Why wouldn't I let her do it whenever she wants?

"We'll learn by doing," I tell them. "Start by putting up a hand with all five fingers up." I plant my elbow on the table and wiggle my fingers around at the group as I stick them up and spread them wide.

"Uh," Phial lifts his hand, reminding me very quickly that he only has four fingers.

"Is it good or bad to have more than five?" Essa asks.

She looks at her own hand and counts the six digits with her other hand out loud, making me feel even worse for not remembering that we might all not have the same number offingers. Jovi and Holoth are no help. They both lean back and don't even pretend not to be amused at my blunder.

"Okay, we'll just go with four because we can't very well make Phial grow a new finger," I say, trying to keep things moving so that we can get to the fun part and past this part that has me flushing.

I've been making them play party games because it's the best way to get to know the silly things about a person, at least in my experience. It would be made easier if we had alcohol on board, but the only thing here to get any of us drunk is Jovi and Alik's semen, and that only works on me. Not that I haven't tried to talk them into it, because I might've.

The kitchen door slides open, and Alik enters like a skittish cat, uncertain if it actually wants to be around people. I shoot him a wide grin and push at Jovi's shoulder until he's sliding out of the booth.

I need to snatch Alik up and guide him over to the table before he can talk himself out of being here. He prefers to be locked away in his room, away from all of us, where there's no one he has to grunt at or give one-word responses to.

When he came to see me earlier for our at least once-a-day boning session, I thought it would be the only time I saw him today. But here he is, and he looks like he's actually making an attempt to socialize.

"Come sit with me. We haven't even started yet," I say to him cheerily.

I make sure to squeeze my boobs together when I get close to him and don't stop until his eyes dip low for a beat. He likes them a lot, and I'm not opposed to using everything in my arsenal to get what I want. I snag his hand and intertwine our fingers as I pull him over to the table with everyone else.

There are various looks of surprise on everyone's faces, but I ignore it because Alik is here. I force him into the booth first.That way, he's trapped. I slide in next, and Jovi squishes us all together as he forces himself as close to me as possible.

"Okay, four fingers up!" I announce and wiggle four of my fingers in the air. I rest my elbow on the table, and everyone else follows suit. "Okay, the rules are easy enough. Each of us will say something we've never done. If someone in the group has done that thing, they have to put a finger down." I look around to make sure the rules of the game are easy enough to follow.

"What do we do when we have no more fingers?" Phial asks, looking at his claw-tipped fingers and wiggling them. "Does that mean we win or we lose?"

"Technically, it means you win, which means there should be a prize."

I'm kind of making this up as I go along, but everyone is pretty good sports about it. It doesn't hurt that none of them have any idea how this game is actually played, so I could make up whatever rules I want.

A part of me loves being in charge of the games, but another part wants to learn about the games each of them has from their planets. No way is Earth the only one with party games. I'll talk to Essa about it and see if anyone else has any interest in teaching us some of their silly games next time we do this.

"We should get to make someone do a dare," Essa says, leaning on her forearms and tightening her tail around my ankle. "Like that game we played two nights ago without the boring truth part."

"Oh, yes, I can make Holoth eat something disgusting." Phial lifts his feathered brows up and down as Holoth scowls at him.

"A dare?" Alik asks, his whole body tensing like he's not too keen on the idea.

Before I can try to assuage his fears, Jovi is leaning past me to hit his arm. He shoots me a wink that has butterflies erupting in my stomach. "You'll like it, don't worry. Sloane dared me to doall kinds of things to her, and none of them were eating things I didn't like."

My face flushes at the way Jovi is implying I had him do sexual things for me. I had him give me a neck and scalp massage and then rub my feet. That was the extent of our touching during the game. Afterward, things might've been different, but those were dares meant only for my bedroom.

Alik's lips flatten at what Jovi says and at my reaction. When his eyes settle on me, all hard and bossy-like, I feel my lower abdomen tighten in anticipation. "I might be interested in these dares."

"Ew," Holoth and Phial say at the same time, reminding us that it's not just the three of us at the table playing this with each other.

I mean, I'd love to get Jovi and Alik all alone to play a little never have I ever, but something tells me that'd be against the new rules we have in place, so they'll have to endure playing out here with all of the crew. Jovi and I were skating pretty close to the boundary of the rules when we were daring each other to do stuff, but there was no intercourse, and my pendant stayed off. So, really, did we actually break any rules?

I ignore the 'ew' comment and continue on about the game. "Okay, whoever puts all four fingers down first gets to give anyone here a dare. After they give the dare, they come back into the game with four new fingers. We keep playing until we're bored or no one can think of anything new. Sound good?"

They all agree, and I bite my lip in anticipation. I'll go first to show them how it works, and we'll go clockwise so it's easy to keep track of. I tap my chin with my free hand as I think about what I want to say.

"Oh! Never have I ever shot a blaster."

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