The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

“... Truth.”

“Truth.”

“Truuuuth.”

“Truth!”

“For gods’ sakes, Truth, I am going to step on you if you don’t get up.”

“Truth.”

“... fine then, don’t say you didn’t ask for it.”

I woke up to a jumble of words and a foot pressing on my stomach and the flailing motions of my arms and legs and the wheezing laughter from myself on the floor and Callum high above me. My eyes came open and I met his, giggling then smiling into them, as he looked down on me with… fascination?

Then I remembered what I’d done, just hours before.

Then he remembered that his foot was stomping onto my stomach.

Both of us scrambled apart, muttering apologies and pleasantries alike before we rejoined at the tiny table for the morning’s meal. It was even quieter than the last night’s had been, which gave me both time to think and time to savor the warm-but-not-hot meal of stew and bread.

It gave me time to think, but the band on my arm would not afford me the luxury of a clear head nor focused thought. I tried to relive the sensations from before, the desire and the temptation as I worked the spell on Callum, the way it was colored by… something else. Something other than the duty and lust for power that I felt when calling on the Pact, when thinking on its verses, when losing my own self to its thrall.

But it was difficult to think. As I chewed mechanically, my mind wandered as much as my eyes did. Callum looked well-rested. Better than—he’d washed up, I realized. His black locks curled around his face while drying in the air, and his skin was scrubbed free of grease and grime.

I wondered how much a wash had cost him. I hadn’t given him any money for the present meal, either, expecting to eat through rations on the road as I had on my way to Jiralesh, days before.

But I was alone then. I wasn’t now. Callum must have realized it, too. A smile played at my lips when, while I stared off towards the strewn bedsheets, I glimpsed his furtive looks in my periphery. Whenever my eyes and my thoughts drifted back to him, though, he was focused squarely on his food, entirely absorbed in the dish. And were I wearing my focus, I would have been able to find out just what he was thinking when his eyes lit upon my face…

There it was again. But noticing the desire only made it speed away from me even faster, ’til I was struggling to remember what the idle thought had even been about. The buttons of my shirt were just too interesting, apparently, and my fingers wouldn’t stop twiddling with them. I put my fist on the table and sighed, defeated.

Callum’s gaze found my clenched fist, and he gulped before posing a question to me. “So… you slept well, I take it?”

I snorted, flattening my hand into five splayed fingers and twirling my spoon inside its wooden bowl. “My back hurts. My everything hurts, actually.” I watched the circling stir for a moment, then spoke more hesitantly. “And you slept…?”

“Amazing,” the prodigy sighed, and I saw how he sagged back in the chair, as if he might nod off just from the memory of it. “That bed’s worse than my own, and my own isn’t good, so… you can imagine that I wasn’t expecting very much from it.”

“But?” I prodded, careful to keep my interest casual.

“But that’s just it,” Callum explained, putting his elbows on the table to gesture as he talked. “It was like the bed didn’t even matter—like it wasn’t even there, Truth. I think I was so damn tired that I could’ve passed out like that on top of Patience. Maybe even just standing up.”

Images flashed through my mind unbidden, of Callum’s slack-jawed, sleepy-eyed expression as he stood swaying in my arms, swaying in my spell, of that same swaying body lolling to and fro on horseback… of the way that, perhaps, just riding in such a way could encourage such feelings in its own right, with a few gentle nudges on the mind this way and that way…

“Truth?”

“Hmm?” I murmured, then met his gaze and jumped in my seat, quickly masking it as a fit of coughing.

Callum squinted at me, rubbing his jaw. “You seem… distracted,” he said.

“Everything hurts,” I said again, shaking my head. “I’m fine. Really.” As I looked at him and smiled, though, I noticed that the skin his hand slid over was cleanly shaven. Freshly so. No more specks of stubble cluttered messily around his chin and his lip… he’d shaved just for me?

“Then you’re definitely taking the bed tonight.” Callum grinned broadly, oblivious to my inner thoughts and the stare that assessed his clear, cared-for complexion. “No questions about it.”

“Ah,” I said. “About that…”

After a long, messy explanation that I couldn’t ever be seen again in the town we’d likely reach on the road that night (‘personal reasons, none of your business, Callum’), we were able to settle our bills with the innkeeper and the stablemaster, then set off with no delay. Two days before we would reach my home, and then another day’s ride from there. The trouble leaving Jiralesh had cost us time, and so would routing entirely around the little village, as well as finding a safe place to camp in the woods beside the track.

But it was necessary. I couldn’t be seen anywhere near that inn again, and I didn’t think I could even take seeing the building itself knowing that inside it, there would be a woman whose three favorite words were ‘service is pleasure’...

I shuddered at the thought, at the echo of those airy and hauntingly melodious words. Callum looked askance at me when I shook, but that only lasted a moment.

Then more thoughts gripped me. How would those words sound coming from his lips, instead? Would they match that slow, dreamy, wonderfully blissful drawl of his? Or would he move, and speak, and act just as stiffly as she?

Why was I even thinking about any of it? And further, why didn’t the very idea make me retch like I had into the river?

Maybe it was because I knew him. Maybe it was because he knew me. Maybe it was because I knew that I wouldn’t go that far, not for real, not ever again—I had been drunk, then, after all. I wasn’t going to drink, not ever again.

But did I know that? And could I keep myself to that? Already I was justifying my actions, for doing the very same thing to Callum. Without his awareness, without his permission, without his consent in any of it.

But it wasn’t the same thing, was it? I had helped him sleep, that was all. He had had an amazing rest. All I’d done was give him a gift, which he’d accepted! After the fact, yes, but he accepted it. Not knowing everything, but knowing enough. He was clever. He would have put the pieces together, that I’d done something to him. Why else would he have acquiesced, when he was so firm before? Why else would moments have vanished in the blink of his eye?

Callum was riding in a cart next to the most dangerous woman he was likely to ever meet, and he was content with that. WIthout even knowing what made me so dangerous.

All because I was fascinating to him?

No, that couldn’t be it. Maybe he was just as eager to help Dess as I was, to do something honestly good.

… but he didn’t know about Dess until the day before.

Maybe he just had wanderlust, wanted to get out of the shop and see the world.

… but he was clever enough, skilled enough, and certainly stealthy enough to do that alone, with that magic of his.

Or, maybe he just really wanted to have an adventure. Who didn’t, these days?

… but if that was the case, what might he have imagined that adventure to entail? The things that everyone knew about adventurers, the things that everyone said…?

No. No. Certainly not, no.

Riding past fields for farming helped to distract me from anything near those notions. I plucked up a stem of wheat that hung close to the cart’s edge; breaking off the budded end, I tossed it over the side and placed the rest of it between my teeth. Callum gazed on in horror. “What is… why are you… something about that is disgusting, but I don’t want to keep looking long enough to find out.”

I laughed, and reached for another stem to offer him. “Nope. Not going anywhere near that,” he said quickly. “Why do you even do that? You don’t know where it’s been.”

“It’s been right here, hasn’t it?” I grinned around the sprig that stuck straight out from my teeth.

“It’s unsanitary,” Callum complained.

“It’s something to do,” I shrugged. “I don’t like talking to myself. So chewing lets me keep my mouth busy while I work.”

“And so you’re just in the field doing… that all day?” I smiled innocently, and watched him suppress a shiver. “No thank you. What made you take up agriculture, anyway?”

“Agriculture is such an academic word.”

Callum laughed. “Would you prefer I just call it ‘farming?’”

“Yes. Yes I would.”

Callum was grumbling about something or other, but my mind drifted back to the fields of home, the sweet smell of the wheat after the rain, the sound of the wind rustling through the sunflowers... of course, it wasn’t like I grew sunflowers, not on purpose, but the things just tend to come up wherever they please, don’t they? Some farmers try to coax them up, since there’s a few places where the seeds can be a delicacy, but... Then I realized that he was grumbling at me.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I said,” he said, with more patience than I thought I deserved, “what made you take up farming?”

“Again,” I said, once more gathering up the thread of the conversation, “it’s something to do. Not everyone has your fancy academy book-learnings, Callum.”

“I didn’t go to an academy.”

“You live with Rigorious. That’s like being in an academy all day, all week, all year long.”

“But it’s still not the same,” he sighed. “I learn a lot about what focalists do, sure. But everything else is scattered. He doesn’t give any deep lessons on the things that don’t interest him personally.”

I turned in my seat to face the apprentice. “You’re telling me there’s things that that man doesn’t obsessively learn about?”

“So many of them!” Callum cried. “He doesn’t care about elemental magics. He can’t stand working with runes, even though that’s basically half his job. I barely know the basic symbols, for gods’ sakes!”

“Saints, Callum, I barely even knew the letters of language when I was your age. Much less the runes.”

“Well that’s just fine, but—” He paused. Opened his mouth, closed it, then stared a while before starting again. “You didn’t know how to read?”

“It was hard enough for my mom and dad to get me to speak,” I explained. “I was twelve when I started speaking to people besides them. The other children mocked me, said I sounded like a southerner, or like a northerner, or…”

Or like a Dolocite.

That was the word they loved to use. Dolocite. Person from Doloc. Given the hard sound at the end of the name of the nation, you’d think they’d be Dolockites. Or Dolockans. Not that whisper-soft almost-hiss, like from a friendly snake, although a snake couldn’t quite pronounce the rest of the name. Snakes were always interesting. Handy to have around, they kept the rats away; better than most other things, anyway. Cats were more friendly, but snakes were more effective, and...

And I was distracted again. My body in the cart, my brain back at the farm, but it might as well have been on the other side of the world. Why couldn’t I keep focused on the conversation? Was it really just the damn band on my arm that kept me from being a danger to everyone for miles around? Is it really miles? Maybe it’s hundreds of miles? I’d never really tested the range of my power, but I’d heard of spells that travelled thousands of...

Callum was talking again. Still. I felt bad asking him to repeat himself, but I still did, because I wanted to know what he was saying, and as bad as that felt, I would have felt terrible if I couldn’t keep up with the conversation and we just lapsed into silence, and he thought me a terrible travelling companion. I really cared what he thought of me, and I was making a complete fool of myself in front of him and...

... and I was asking him again to repeat himself, finally, finally understanding what he was saying.

“Children are vicious little beasts, aren’t they?”

“They are,” I agreed. “I don’t know why I’m trying so badly to help this one.”

“Well…” He tapped his feet on the cart a few times, looking out over the rolling golden fields while he chose his next words slowly, carefully. I could tell they were important, just from the time he gave them. “When I was this boy’s age, I could’ve used some help.”

Me too, I echoed, silently. “Want to talk about it?”

Callum shrugged. “There isn’t much to say.”

“But you can say it,” I said softly. “It might help.”

He scoffed. “How could that help?”

“Think of it this way.” I put my hand onto his shoulder. It should have been a simple gesture, gently comforting, nothing more than an unconscious touch. But as soon as I touched him, he stiffened up straight, and a short, hissed gasp came through his lips. It should have been all but imperceptible, but I could feel every part of it as though it happened in slowed motion. He recoiled, but he didn’t move away. He was rigid, but not uncomfortable.

Seconds passed. The longer I watched him, the harder he tried to keep his eyes away, and the more he shifted in his seat. I remembered, then, that I was meant to speak—not just to watch him squirm. What was I going to say? Why couldn’t I remember? An “um” sound was all I uttered, which made him laugh, and made me embarrassed.

“You were talking about how it could help?” Callum prodded, hesitantly, still staring off toward a farmhouse with a focus so intent that it suggested he thought it might grow legs and stomp around.

I swallowed; my throat was so dry, and I didn’t want to look at him, either. But I couldn’t help myself. “Think of it this way,” I said again. “If you can tell me what it was like, that might help us help this boy. Because, saints know, he’ll be going through it, too. Maybe not as bad. Maybe worse.”

Callum exhaled, putting his right hand to his temples to rub them slowly. My gentle, simple touch seemed to have paralyzed the left side of his body. “The sickness was bad, but it wasn’t the worst of it.”

“He’s already feverish, Dess told me. She said he’s moody, irritable, and…”

“Constantly complaining about an aching this, a burning that? Can’t sit still? Tosses and turns whenever he tries to sleep, and still can’t get a lick of it?” The prodigy frowned. “His outburst must be close. Do you know his age?”

“I… don’t remember,” I admitted, withdrawing my hand to my lap. “I know she told me, but…”

He laughed, and I smiled in spite of myself as his gaze came back to mine. “So you don’t know the kid’s age, you don’t know his name—what do you know about him?”

“He’s special to his mother, but I barely even know her,” I muttered.

“And you’re still coming all this way for the little bastard.”

“Wouldn’t you?” I countered. “Aren’t you?”

“No, I’m coming because—” He froze. Then, “Because I had nothing better to do. And it’ll prove an interesting opportunity for me. Field work, you see. Rigorious always wants me to do more field work.”

“... right,” I remarked, gazing at him until he turned away once more. The slip was short, but noticeable. And it only made me wonder even more at… well, at just about everything. Why he froze, why he flushed, why he stared—what he stared at, what he saw in me—did he see anything in me? What did he want to see? Why had he chosen to clean up so nicely? Why could I smell lavender over the smell of fields and stench of horse, and why did I want to smell it even more?

Saints alive, Truth, you’re infatuated with him. I shook my head ‘no’ and snapped the reins, until Patience and the cart were both louder than my clamorous thoughts.

Callum still looked on. And his voice came to me even louder than those. “I think I was just… afraid, Truth.” He spoke softly, but my ears caught and held onto every word.

“Afraid of what?” I found myself asking, cursed myself for indulging.

“Of… everything,” he said, with a shiver. “When I was sick, I was afraid, because I didn’t know what was wrong with me. Neither did my parents, I remember that much. And after… gods, after was even worse. I was glad to be healthy, but at the time, I would’ve traded it away.”

“Why?”

“Because I couldn’t control anything. Anything at all. I was a child, you know, children can’t control anything ordinarily. They’re small. Little. They can’t even feed themselves without making a mess of everything.” I laughed, and Callum wore a smile even as he went on. “But when everything you touch can disappear, or change its color, or grow blindingly bright, and you can’t stop any of it? It didn’t make sense. I couldn’t understand it. And so… I was afraid of it.”

I wanted to touch him. I wanted to do more than just put a hand on his shoulder; I could see through the smile to the hollowness in his eyes, where that same fear still lay somewhere inside, and I wanted to embrace him. I wanted to make it certain that he would never have to fear a thing. Because I knew that fear. I still felt that fear. Control could only grant so much confidence, and my clumsy mastery had only led to still more fear. He didn’t deserve to have ever felt afraid, not for a power so wondrous as his.

I wished I could do many things. But we rode on, and the thoughts faded, and I did none of them. If he came closer, he would know what I was, and if he knew what I was… he would have many more reasons to be afraid.

“Well it looks… quaint. Doesn’t it? I think I did a fine job.”

Callum’s smile was weak as he looked at me from the edge of our tent. I say ‘tent’, here, but in reality it only barely resembled such a thing. The poles to hold up the canvas were flimsy, and shook in even the slightest bit of wind. The tarp itself sagged heavily on both sides, and it would be a wonder if there was any room inside to even sit up straight. The pegs had barely been punched into the earth, but the effort Callum had exerted to do even that showed: he stood slick with sweat, still panting, and obviously very hopeful that I’d say he could put the mallet down.

He’d insisted on putting up our tent himself, because ‘he knew how tents work, obviously, everyone knows how tents work.’ When it began to rain, he kept on going, because ‘it’s just taking a little longer than usual, and you’re busy with Patience, so really just stand over there where it’s dry and don’t worry about all this.’

I wasn’t busy at all with Patience. I’d tied the horse and our cart up beneath the broadest-canopied tree so that he wouldn’t shiver and freeze himself to death overnight. He watched Callum’s work with the same skeptical eye as I did, though I don’t think he thought it nearly as endearing as I did. I wanted to help him, of course, because we would’ve been inside and dry within much less time, if I had. But he was so focused on the task he’d taken up that I didn’t want to take it away from him. Even when the result was so… meager.

I put on a smile as I strode through the rain to join him by our ‘tent’. “It looks as fine a tent as I could expect, from your hard work. Thank you, Callum.”

“You’re welcome!” he said eagerly, then he stared at me puzzledly. “Wait… what does that—”

I couldn’t hear him after I shimmied my way through the tent’s flaps. I had to buy myself time to change, after all, so leaving him outside and confused wouldn’t be so bad a thing, would it? I hastily shrugged off my coat, undid my shirt, and began the struggle of slipping free of my tight, rain-slick breeches. Eventually those too came off, but not after a significant amount of frustration. Undergarments had to go, next—everything needed to dry. Finally, once I was completely in the nude, I folded it all and set the bundle aside, then I listened.

Rain was falling harder now, hammering its drops on the canvas. Beneath it, and meters away, I could hear Patience braying and Callum’s low, fitful exclamations. He seemed busy enough. Though for a moment, I thought on the fact that he could easily poke his head inside and see all of my naked body… and I didn’t immediately tell myself to stop imagining it. Daydreaming it. Fantasizing over it? Ugh, saints, why did I have to be so aroused?

I made a warding sign with my fingers and dashed it across my chest, as though invoking the Pact could keep my desires at bay. More quickly, I pulled a loose gown over myself and had it cinched up tight just as I heard his footsteps coming closer.

Callum stuck his head through the flaps. First, he looked me up and down, then he swallowed. “You, ah… wouldn’t happen to have any clean shirts to spare, would you?”

I blinked at him. “You want to wear… one of my shirts?”

He nodded. “Right. Um. I didn’t really… pack that well.”

Again, I blinked. “Are you saying that you only brought one shirt, Callum?”

“You didn’t tell me how long a journey this would be! I thought it would be urgent, so I just grabbed what I had and didn’t think to—why are you laughing?”

“Because I doubt you ever wear a shirt to sleep normally, do you?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Then why would you need one now?”

He bit his lip. “Because I’m sleeping with… because I’m laying… oh, for fuck’s sake.” Callum’s stammering subsided into a heavy sigh, and he brought the rest of himself past the neck into the tent as well. As he implied, he was naked from the waist up. Where his shirt had been soaked through from sweat and raindrops before, now I could see his slim, lean torso glistening with rainwater from his shoulders on downwards. His teeth chattered as he sat down, drying himself off with a cleaning towel, and he made surreptitious glances my way.

My looks were not so secretive. Admittedly, I stared. Using magic as much as he did, training in it as his art and livelihood, was enough to burn the fat off of every inch of his figure. Mages needed to eat a lot to keep any on, and he had none. That wasn’t to say that he looked bony, or underfed. No, Callum took care of himself well. Quite well. Often spellcasting would devour muscle just as easily as fat, but he still bore some in his chest, his abdomen.

Though he lacked the strength of muscle that I bore from days, weeks, months, years laboring in the field, he looked sturdy. Sturdier than I’d expected. And he must’ve been gathering the same impression from me. My arms were exposed from the gown, and for the first time he could see the whole shape of them. The black armband fit tightly around the bulk below my shoulder, and my forearms would flex as I clutched and tensed my hands over my propped-up knees.

Callum still panted.

So did I.

But I noticed that he stared intently, and at my body, but not… at my body. He was looking through me, off at something else, seeing somewhere else.

“Callum?” I asked cautiously.

“Hmm?”

“Are you… doing something?”

He gulped. “Just this.”

Then he snapped his fingers.

Magical light blinded me, forcing my eyes shut, blaring red through my closed lids. I recoiled, but the flash relented just as quickly as it had come. When I lowered my hands and opened my eyes… we weren’t in a tent.

We were in a palace. Columns of gold stood along the walls, and all around me stretched an immense room, covered in ornate tapestry, opulent decorations of jewels and art, candle sconces mounted on the walls and glittering, magically glimmering chandeliers hanging from the tall, cavernous ceiling above.

I gasped. I tried to rise immediately, but Callum put his hand on my shoulder, keeping me low, holding me in place as I bit my lip. “You’ll break the spell if you move too far,” he murmured, as his hand gestured before me. The air swam around his fingers, and I saw that a translucent sheet of silk hung around and above us. Thin enough to see everything through, but real enough for me to make out and keep from touching.

“We’re still in the tent,” I said slowly, reaching for the hanging silk.

Before I could touch it, Callum’s hand closed around my wrist, again making me still, making me flush. “We are. And I’d rather you not ruin all my hard work.”

I giggled, he chuckled, and I turned to meet his gaze. He looked… brighter. Vibrant. Not different, not as though he’d changed his shape, but… once again, he’d worked to make himself and his body look good. To make them look appealing. Enticing. I swallowed as my eyes strayed down his chin, his smooth, sturdy chest, to his waist… and then right back up again. I felt myself blushing even brighter.

I asked myself why I found this form appealing. I didn’t know if his spell had conjured an image of him that I would enjoy, or if he had a standard illusion he used on himself. Or maybe this was just what I expected to see. Or what I hoped to see? I did want to see more.

But did I want to see more of the illusion? Or more of...

“Do you like it?” His hand gently lowered mine to the space between us, and I felt his soft, uncalloused fingers gliding over the backs of my own.

“Yes,” I whispered, hoping he hadn’t noticed my earlier distraction. “I knew that you were amazing, but…” Callum flushed and looked away. I grinned, moving closer to him, putting my other hand atop his and squeezing it tenderly. “Your gift is beautiful, Callum.”

“Th-thanks,” he said haltingly, just as slow to meet my eyes as he was to meet my words.

“This is…” I took another look around the space. And for the first time, I looked at our immediate surroundings. We were sat on an expanse of lavender sheets, richly soft (though it still felt like bedrolls over hard, grassy ground), a bed bigger than any I’d ever dreamed of. The silk sheet, the tent’s tarp hanging over us, was mounted by great posts at the corners of the bed, as if to keep what we would do secret from our many royal attendants. “This is a bedroom,” I realized.

“Well… we’re going to sleep, aren’t we?” Callum flashed a grin at me, brighter than bright in the mystic, shifting light. The works of crystal chandelier overhead spun and danced freely, idly, casting all manner of rainbows through the room, illuminating the beauties that seemed to change themselves, remake themselves whenever my gaze lit back on them.

“Are you making all of this… all of the time?”

“It takes a lot of concentration,” he admitted. “I have to picture the whole space at once, how it would look to you and me if the light changed in any slight mmf—!”

I leaned in and kissed him. I kept my eyes open to see how his widened, to see how the room quivered and faded in and out around us. Glimpses of a shabby tent melted together with royal perfection, but the longer I held him there the more determined he became. The tent vanished altogether, as I stared into his eyes and felt his tongue with my own. The crystal chandeliers lit with dim, deep reds, covering us in a light like warm blood, like hot arousal. I pulled free of him and slipped inches away, but he reached for my hand with both of his as I gasped for breath.

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that for,” Callum breathed, staring at me with wonder, and something like hunger.

I drifted closer, still far enough away that he couldn’t yet reach my lips. “Tell me?”

“Since I met you,” he muttered hoarsely. “Since you beat me in a fight and held me pinned on the ground. Since you wanted to take me with you, of all people, on an adventure.”

I squinted at him. “You like that I beat you up?”

He shrugged aimlessly, flashing me another smile. “What guy wouldn’t like a woman that can kick his ass?”

“Language,” I whispered, before my hand darted out to wrap around his neck and pull him into another embrace. Again, I saw the vision ripple, intensifying and diminishing as he took his turn to explore my mouth, my taste. It was fascinating, watching the magic fade in waves and be renewed as his concentration waned and returned, seeing the patterns emerge from the image of sagging canvas and expensive finery like...

It felt good. It felt so good. It felt good enough that I pulled my attention back, demanded that my shattered mind pay heed to the wonderful feelings coursing through me, coming from him. And though my mind wandered, drifting in an out of focus on his touch, focus on his taste, focus on his spell… I relished every second.

Callum pulled away from me this time. “Do you like this?” he asked softly, one of his hands rubbing through the short hairs on the side of my head, his soft skin against my scalp making me quiver.

“Yes,” I said. I meant it. Saints, I meant it. But it made me think of what I’d done, what I could do, what I would do, given the chance…

It made me think of replacing my armband with one more magical.

And then I kissed him again, and those thoughts went away. I closed my eyes, and just enjoyed it. I hadn’t truly cared about kissing a man in years. With the men I usually met, the men I usually bedded with, kissing was pretense. Kissing was perfunctory. Kissing was necessary, to do anything else.

Now… all I wanted to do was kiss him. Taste him. Know him.

I opened my eyes as our lips parted. The vision remade itself once again, and I couldn’t help but laugh. Callum tilted his head at me. “When you get distracted, you seem to have trouble keeping it up,” I explain.

He smirked. “Trust me, Truth. I have no problems keeping it up.”

I felt myself shiver. I felt my eyes straining to look downward, to see what he meant. And I could feel my hands itching to feel what he meant, just as the rest of me ached for the same. But I shook my head, flattened my hands, forced my eyes to hold his gaze. “Only this. And no touching. And our clothes stay on. You understand?”

Callum nodded eagerly. “Absolutely.”

“Good,” I said. “Then kiss me again.”

“Again?”

“Again.”