I'm not stalking you or anything

It didn't take much coaxing or convincing to get Venom to follow him out of the reception hall and into the moonlit gardens, and even less effort at that point to have her settling into the grass beneath the gorgeous purple fronds of the wisteria. He felt Venom lean gently into his side and he happily bore her weight, supporting her with his own frame while they surreptitiously cuddled in the gardens, listening to the chorus of nocturnal insects around them in the warm Austral summer night. Venom had crossed her graceful paws, but Maverick, ever the boundary-pressing devil he was, slid one of his own large paws over to brush against the side of hers, lifting to rest atop a white-gloved paw as if holding her hand. Behind them, his bushy tail swished languidly about on the grasses until it bumped into hers, then he made a sneaky move of draping his tail over hers. Was he trying to snuggle the Empress? Yes, yes he was.

Venom teased him with his own words, claiming to have some ideas of what they could mean. Maverick gave a curious hum as he slid his goblet closer to his maw, lapping at the heady spiced rum he'd filled his cup with. "Oh is that so?" he teased her back, feigning coyness as if he were some saintly pious being and not a rambler guilty of virtually every sin in every good book. "Go on then, Your Grace. Enlighten me with these ideas you have on what I could mean." He flashed his pearly teeth in a sly yet playful grin to his date. He knew exactly where they both hoped the night would lead them, and where they both hoped it would end up, but he did so enjoy playing games with her before they got to that main event. There was no rush, after all. The night was young, they had one another's company and enough alcohol to forget or remember as much of this night as they wanted to.

Giving a little sound of inspiration, Maverick lifted his muzzle from his cup as an idea came to his mind. "Feel like playing a little drinking game, Empress? Or is that too far beneath a wolf of your royal stature?" Before Venom could decline, he continued to explain the game, maybe in an effort to show her how benign it was. "It's a simple game I learned from wolves a long, long way from here. Basically, we take turns making statements about one another. Our lives, our personalities, our pasts, anything is fair game. If you say something true, I have to drink. If you're wrong, you drink, and vice versa for me. Think of it as a way to get to the more... physically fun parts of the evening while getting to know one another better." Maverick smiled that rakish grin at the beautiful Empress once more, doing his best not to get lost in those sunset eyes immediately. "What'dya say, Ven? Up for a game?"

"Maverick"