Page 15 of Forbidden Impulses

He shakes his head before sparing me a glance. "Right, sorry. Games. How about the old favorite? I spy?"

I giggle at his suggestion before leaning my head back again. "Sure, Gramps. I'll go first."

My gaze travels across the inside of the car, barely paying any attention to the passing scenery. "Hmmm, I spy with my little eye, something starting with the letter C."

I'm rather proud of my prompt. I don't foresee him guessing it right.

"You know," he says, his tone thoughtful, "You were so eager to get started, that we didn't set up any rules. Or terms, for that matter."

I shrug before gesturing with my hand for him to continue. "I'm all ears. What do you propose?"

He seems to choke on his spit before smacking himself on the chest and taking a deep breath. "Ugh, sorry. Uh, where was I? Oh yeah. Terms for the game. Everything needs to be in the car, it must remain in view of the car for the remainder of the person's turn."

"Done," I respond without needing to think about it. I have no interest in cheating by picking something we drove by five miles ago. "What else you got?"

"Winner gets a boon.Anything they want."

This causes me to pause. Anything? Is this how he's going to get me to leave? Surely this isn't an elaborate ruse to get rid of the hussy that kissed his husband. Right?

"You don't have to agree, Annie," he says softly. "We can just play for fun."

With those two sentences, he soothes all my worries. He wouldn't have given in on the stipulation if he really wanted to get rid of me. And really, he could just kick me out.

"Okay, deal. Anything the winner wants. And the winner will be the first to get to five points."

He gifts me with a rewarding smile. "Now, with those rules and terms in place. Do you want to change your prompt?"

I shake my head in response, beaming at him. "Nope, I'm good, thanks."

"Cubby hole," he responds, his face deadpan.

"No!" I gasp, smacking my hand down on my thigh. "How did you guess that so quickly?"

His loud laughter rumbles through my body, warming me from head to toe. "I too spent some time in the UK in my misspent youth. I learnt a few clever words and turns of phrase. One of the strangest ones to me was calling a glove box a cubbyhole."

"Personally, I kind of like it. It reminded me of those little box cubbies we had in kindergarten," I tell him. "Now it's your turn.”

He throws one at me that I guess pretty easily, and for the next hour, we take turns, with the prompts getting steadily harder. I try to stump him with as many foreign words as I can come up with, but no matter how hard I try he keeps getting it eventually. I'm pretty sure I'm outmatched.

It's my turn next, and if he gets the next prompt, then I'll lose. Fuck, who am I even kidding? I missed a guess two turns back, so there's very little chance of me catching up at this point.

"Okay, Annie. You’re next."

I peek around the car again, even though I've done so, so many times by now, I'm sure I know the car like the back of my hand. We only have slim pickings left at this point, and I'll have to be creative to keep him guessing.

"Tik-tok, tik-tok," he taunts me and I turn to face him, stretching the seatbelt to do so.

"Fine, Mr. Smarty-pants. I spy with my little eye, something beginning with an S!"

He smirks at me. "It isn't a sassy brat, is it?"

Rolling my eyes at him, I cross my arms in front of my chest before shaking my head. "No adjectives. Everyone knows that. It's one word."

"Oh well, in that case, it has to be a seatbelt."

"Well fuck," I mutter, throwing my head back dramatically. "You win, old man. Name your prize."

He winks at me before shaking his head. "I think I'll keep you guessing for a while. We'll come back to it at a later time, maybe at some point during our vacation."

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