“No,” Daryl conceded. “But I think it’s highly likely we might see one of them tonight. They might want to hear how today’s exercise went.”
“That’s true.” Jason read through the note one more time.
“So . . .” He had no idea why the thought of this made him hot all over, but it did. “What should we use as a blindfold.” Walking over to the window next to his bed, he casually opened it to let some fresh air in and hopefully cool his overheated skin. “Because I don’t know about you, but that’s not the sort of thing I usually carry around with me.”
“No?” Daryl leant back on his hands, eyes alight with mischief. “I packed all kinds of things.”
He gave a little shrug. “Didn’t know what we might be doing.”
Jason narrowed his eyes, trying to gauge if Daryl was fucking with him. When the corners of his mouth started to curve, Jason rolled his eyes. “Oh, fuck off. I’m serious. What are we going to use?”
He pulled a sock out of one of the drawers and dangled it in Daryl’s face. “Not sure this is going to cut it. And I didn’t pack a tie or anything.” The idea of blindfolding Daryl with one of his ties made Jason’s mouth suddenly dry.
He reached for the bottle of water next to his bed and focused intently on getting it open instead of the images trying to force their way into his head.
When Daryl still hadn’t said anything, Jason glanced up to see two spots of colour high on his cheeks.
“I might’ve packed one,” he said, so matter-of-factly that if Jason hadn’t noticed him blushing, he’d have thought him unaffected by this whole thing.
“Why did you pack a tie?”And fuck me, that might even be worse than using one of mine.It’d be a miracle if Jason escaped this night without embarrassing himself.
“It’s the alpha council,” Daryl replied as if that explained everything. And maybe it did? Maybe Jason had been remiss in not packing anything remotely formal.
Regardless of any of that, though, it meant he’d soon be wrapping a tie around Daryl’s eyes and trying not to get hard while doing it.
Kill me now.
He took another drink of water, delaying as long as possible in the hope his voice wouldn’t come out rougher than normal. “Let’s have a look at it then.” It was better than saying, “Get it out then,” but still sounded far too suggestive to Jason’s ears. Everything sounded suggestive at the moment.
Daryl smirked at him—obviously Jason was easier to read that he’d hoped—but got off the bed and bent down to open his suitcase. Jason tried not to watch, but found he couldn’t look away, especially at Daryl’s soft “Aha.”
As he stood and turned to face Jason, he held up a tie. A dark-blue, silk-looking tie that bore a striking resemblance to the colour of Daryl’s eyes. Then he ran it through his fingers, slowly, almost teasing, and Jason jumped off the bed to snatch it out of his hands. If he watched any more of that, he’d be sporting a semi. And Daryl wouldknow. He stood as close to the open window as possible, hoping any stray traces of arousal would make their way out there and not across the room to Daryl.
He held the tie at both ends and gave it a tug. So not helping. “This should work,” he said, only a little gravelly. But fuck, what did Daryl expect when he played with the thing like that. “So . . .” Jason tried to steer the conversation away from the tie. He threw it onto the bed and refused to look at it.
“Escorting you down to dinner is straightforward enough. You can take my arm, and I’ll tell you where to step.”
“Okay.”
“The instructions say I have to choose dinner for you, but they don’t say I can’t tell you what’s on offer or find out what you don’t like before we go down there.”
“I’ll eat pretty much anything,” Daryl offered. Then he frowned and added, “Apart from avocado. Can’t stand the stuff.”
“Noted.” Personally, Jason loved it, but to each their own. “What about to drink?”
“Water’ll be fine.”
“Okay.” Jason tried to think if they needed to cover anything else. When he failed to come up with anything, he clapped his hands together. “I think that’s everything.” He checked the time on his
phone. Only 3.45pm. They had a few hours to kill since dinner wasn’t until half-past six. But he needed to get out of that room before he did something stupid. “I’m gonna head out for a walk around the lodge, get a bit of fresh air.”
Daryl gave him a searching look but just nodded.
“See you later.” Jason left the room, and as the door closed behind him, he shut his eyes and let out a sigh of relief. Rachel’s scent met him when he inhaled, and he heard her footsteps on the stairs.
“Hey.” She greeted him with a smile when he walked over to her on the landing. “I was just coming to find you.”
“Oh?” He leant against the bannister, returning her smile, glad for someone else to focus on.
