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T W E L V E
- Quinn -
I’d never wanted anything to be over so bad, but as long as Maddy’s stubbornness kept her at that table, I wasn’t going anywhere. No chance in Hell I’d leave her alone with Tanner when he was grinning at her like Wile E. Coyote.
But I needed to keep a cool head. After losing one of my socks, I only had a sock in the game more than Tanner, and I was determined to buy him out. Fortunately, Maddy folded at the start of the next round, so I finally had my chance. “I see your twenty bucks,” I said, sliding my neatly stacked chips towards the center of the table. “And I raise you fifty.”
“What do you have, Draper?” He squinted at me, his eyes searching mine. “Two of a kind? A high card? I think you’re bluffing.”
“Maybe I am,” I said. “What are you going to do about it?”
Tanner bit the inside of his cheek and glanced at his cards before looking back at me. “I see your fifty.”
My insides smiled. “How much you got left?” I asked, sizing up his chips and pushing more into the center.
His jaw ticked with annoyance. “Fine, asshole, I’m all in. Show me what you got.”
“Four of a kind,” I said, throwing my cards down.
“Fuck.” He dropped his hand to reveal three of a kind.
“Put your damn clothes back on,” I said, my tone making it clear that it wasn’t a suggestion.
“Cool your jets,” he said, raising his palms. “I want to see how this plays out.”
Maddy reached forward and gathered up the cards, her eyes flicking over at me before she shuffled. Was she enjoying this? Did she have an exhibitionist streak I didn’t know about? Did she like the way Tanner’s eyes had been licking her up and down for the last hour?
“Guess it’s just you and me now, Draper,” she said, trying my last name on for size.
Her taunting made my dick swell, and I was glad everyone’s eyes were well above the table.
“I wonder what I’ll do with my winnings?” she joked as she dealt the cards. “Or should I let you win so you can afford to buy some new socks?”
“I like my socks,” I said without cracking a smile. They were my silent rebellion against the corporate assholes and egomaniacal athletes I worked with every day. They were proof that I wasn’t like them, that I didn’t take myself too seriously. They were proof that there was more to life than big paychecks, cutting deals, and small print. They were proof I hadn’t forgotten my mom.
“I like your socks, too,” Maddy said, her eyes smiling at me.
Something inside me softened. Something that needed to be hard to play poker.
“She’s playing mind games with you, bro,” Tanner chimed in. “Nobody likes your fucking socks.”
I glared at him. “Why are you still here?” Are you genuinely too dense to read between the lines or do you just not care that this whole situation is fucked?
Maddy took a deep breath and eyed the three cards lying on the table between us: a nine of diamonds, a jack of diamonds, and a seven of diamonds.
I glanced down, my stomach dropping when I saw I had the ten and the eight. A straight flush. She couldn’t have better cards than that. I looked up at her face, which was furrowed in concentration until she felt me watching and relaxed her expression.
I had two options. I could take her money, win this hand, and let her grapple with whether she should play a round topless in a last-ditch effort to keep from losing. Or I could fall on my sword. I hated both options. I was a competitive person, and I rarely lost on poker night. But this was Maddy we were talking about. Sweet, innocent Maddy who wasn’t wearing any underwear under her clothes.
I thought about the moment she asked me to blow on her panties and my stomach muscles tightened all the way to my dick. But despite how much I craved her—despite how much I wanted to see the hourglass body she’d been wrapping in my bath towels—my desire to protect her was the strongest urge of all. I twisted my lips and scratched the back of my head in an effort to make her think she could win.
“Do your worst, Quinn.”
I raised slowly at first and watched her chips trickle towards the center of the table. She nibbled her bottom lip as she studied my face for tells, her long lashes casting shadows on her lightly freckled cheeks every time she looked down at her cards. Then I went all in.
Her eyes popped wide. She only had a hundred and fifty bucks of the pot. “Forcing my hand a bit there, aren’t you?”
I locked my gaze on hers. “I would never force your hand.”
